Gifted Bulletin Board

Welcome to the Gifted Issues Discussion Forum.

We invite you to share your experiences and to post information about advocacy, research and other gifted education issues on this free public discussion forum.
CLICK HERE to Log In. Click here for the Board Rules.

Links


Learn about Davidson Academy Online - for profoundly gifted students living anywhere in the U.S. & Canada.

The Davidson Institute is a national nonprofit dedicated to supporting profoundly gifted students through the following programs:

  • Fellows Scholarship
  • Young Scholars
  • Davidson Academy
  • THINK Summer Institute

  • Subscribe to the Davidson Institute's eNews-Update Newsletter >

    Free Gifted Resources & Guides >

    Who's Online Now
    0 members (), 591 guests, and 14 robots.
    Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
    Newest Members
    streble, DeliciousPizza, prominentdigitiz, parentologyco, Smartlady60
    11,413 Registered Users
    March
    S M T W T F S
    1 2
    3 4 5 6 7 8 9
    10 11 12 13 14 15 16
    17 18 19 20 21 22 23
    24 25 26 27 28 29 30
    31
    Previous Thread
    Next Thread
    Print Thread
    Page 2 of 4 1 2 3 4
    Joined: Feb 2008
    Posts: 21
    O
    Junior Member
    Offline
    Junior Member
    O
    Joined: Feb 2008
    Posts: 21
    I would have said, "He got it from where all gifts come" and left it at that. I would not have answered the "so what do you do?" questions. If he pushed it with some sort of inane retort, I would have used the classic southern USA line of "well, bless your heart!" while batting my eyelashes.

    Joined: Jan 2008
    Posts: 1,689
    W
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    W
    Joined: Jan 2008
    Posts: 1,689
    Or just say "DNA, I thought you would know that" and then walk away.

    Joined: Aug 2011
    Posts: 739
    P
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    P
    Joined: Aug 2011
    Posts: 739
    I think in this case it was likely "a professor thing" just as LNEsMom pointed out upthread. My DH is an art professor and I am a SAHM. Many of his colleagues from other fields don't know quite what to make of me and I have had several be rather dismissive and rude at university events. Many more though seem to have a level of envy that I am able to be home with DD (more men than women I might add). In my experience a lot of professors can lack social skills and look for "evidence" to prove a theory in what the average person would view as a normal, everyday conversation. I probably would have answered with my actual opinion of where it came from. If he is interested in your son and you were labled gifted as a child that would fit his theory. Why a gifted parent chooses to be a SAHM would probably have led to more in-depth and perhaps meaningful discussion. It would have been great fun to enlighten him:)

    Joined: Aug 2008
    Posts: 748
    C
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    C
    Joined: Aug 2008
    Posts: 748
    I've gotten this before because I am "just a teacher." I'm quite certain that most adults could not survive a day in a middle school! I've learned to just roll with it and say something sarcastic or witty. My son's older now and he thinks it's funny so when people ask him how he got so smart he'll say "Zeus is my real father." That always makes me laugh... though it does make some adults walk away with puzzled looks!

    I tend to go with, "I've asked myself that many times," but I've also said "Genetics". "He's not mine, I'm just his nanny," my favorite line when I don't know the person and don't care what they think!

    Joined: Jun 2011
    Posts: 76
    L
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    L
    Joined: Jun 2011
    Posts: 76
    LOL at the mailman comment!!!

    Joined: Nov 2011
    Posts: 12
    M
    Junior Member
    Offline
    Junior Member
    M
    Joined: Nov 2011
    Posts: 12
    I have a HG nephew who at 5 could beat me at chess 50% of the time, and I'm fairly good at chess. He was also in Odyssey of the Mind and travelled around the country for competitions.

    But as a teen he went down the wrong path and got into drugs. He now has a part time job at Home Depot. You can't judge a book by its cover.

    Joined: May 2007
    Posts: 982
    L
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    L
    Joined: May 2007
    Posts: 982
    My sister-in-law is a geology professor and she has said things around me in the past that really bothered me but she never said anything about my son's intelligence being a fluke, possibly because she assumes that her brother's side of the family is where my son got his intelligence. I don't know what I would say if she said something like that. I have wondered in the past if she thought I couldn't possibly prepare my son well enough to get into a good college since I only have an associates degree in accounting that I earned while working full time. I was also a single parent when I earned that degree and I stopped going to school after getting only a two-year degree to devote more time to my daughter after working all day.

    When my sister-in-law isn't working as a professor she is working toward earning more degrees while I am a stay-at-home mom, homeschooling my son. I wish I could have stayed home with my daughter.

    I asked my husband what he thought about the professor's comment. He said maybe the professor didn't mean it the way it sounded. Maybe he meant that it is unusual to have a stay at home mom to nurture her son's intelligence. He has had a lot of practice deciphering his sister's comments and turning what she said into something positive. My husband is a supervisor with excellent people skills and innate social intelligence that some people just don't have. Just because someone is a professor doesn't necessarily mean they have this type of intelligence.

    Sometimes I think my sister-in-law just says things without thinking about how the person she is speaking to will take what she just said. I have wondered if she doesn't care if she hurts someone's feelings or if she really isn't aware that is what she is doing. I don't know that I would ever want to take one of her classes. I have just avoided talking to her as much as possible--until just recently. She told me her kids felt like ACT prep was a waste of time and they didn't really need it and that when she took it years ago you just took the test without any kind of test prep and she did well. I also did well enough without any kind of test prep to get into the college I wanted. I could have gone back to college while acquiring a lot more debt, but that didn't seem so smart to me. The main reason I chose not to is because I really enjoy staying home and learning with my son and I don't care if anyone thinks about me.

    Joined: Feb 2011
    Posts: 433
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    Joined: Feb 2011
    Posts: 433
    Neither my husband nor I "present" as gifted--and i truly haven't a clue where we'd falll on the curve. When we had DD tested on the WISC, the psych asked about our educational backgrounds, childhoods, etc. He looked at her paperwork and just said, "sometimes it (giftedness) skips a generation.". We have laughed about that often since. Everytime she "bests" us, we quietly tell each other "sometimes it skips a generation"...

    Joined: Feb 2011
    Posts: 1,432
    Q
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    Q
    Joined: Feb 2011
    Posts: 1,432
    People are inherently obnoxious. At the same time, it was more likely to be a thoughtless comment. He may have been wondering whether you and your dh provided an enriched home environment. I think that your educational background and hobbies would have more bearing than your SAHM status. A single question may be interpreted multiple ways. I usually give people the benefit of the doubt and ask for clarification. If they are clearly making obnoxious stereotyping/generalization, then I would call them on it.

    Joined: Sep 2011
    Posts: 342
    2
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    2
    Joined: Sep 2011
    Posts: 342
    can I share..this reminds me of my brother meeting my DDs...

    My brother measured over 140 on an IQ test when we were kids and has always had "issues". I'm actually concerned that DD8 will turn out like him, highly intelligent but slightly mean and contemptuous as a defense mechanism. He has a good job, but is pretty anti-social.

    Anyway, when he finally is in the States on a visit, he meets the girls, I think Butter was about 4 and The Diva was just a baby. Whatever Butter shared must have been quite impressive because he said to me later, that my kids made him think maybe he should have some too. That they were "obvious proof of our genetic superiority and that if his had even 25% the same DNA, that would still make them better than average." Well, I'm sure that sounds rude to the outside observer, but, coming from him, that is a HUGE compliment, lol!


    I get excited when the library lets me know my books are ready for pickup...
    Page 2 of 4 1 2 3 4

    Moderated by  M-Moderator, Mark D. 

    Link Copied to Clipboard
    Recent Posts
    Testing with accommodations
    by aeh - 03/27/24 01:58 PM
    Quotations that resonate with gifted people
    by indigo - 03/27/24 12:38 PM
    For those interested in astronomy, eclipses...
    by indigo - 03/23/24 06:11 PM
    California Tries to Close the Gap in Math
    by thx1138 - 03/22/24 03:43 AM
    Gifted kids in Illinois. Recommendations?
    by indigo - 03/20/24 05:41 AM
    Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5