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.
