I've always wondered why on earth parents would behave in such a way... WHY would you want your child to be "Gifted" (capital-G-gifted, I mean).
Because you're a believer in positive eugenics and you want the entire human population to have IQs over 150?
I'd guess the motivation is commonly much more personal. "My child has a number that makes her super-awesome, thereby establishing my own super-awesomeness."
I'm guessing so, too. See, this
is actually why we've deliberately chosen to go with "our DD is what she can DO, not a number" and not ever get her evaluated.
But I think that our real reasons
do have a lot to do with the idea that:
a) you can't Un-know things once known (which is one of this author's main points, actually),
b) we don't even want the APPEARANCE of being parents like this (for whom the number is about our own needs), and
c) if the number is as high as we think, it potentially dwarfs WHO our child is for far too many people (honestly, even her overt abilities do that sometimes)-- if it's far lower, then what on earth would we change? Clearly what we and the school have done with DD is stuff she's well capable of, and they have not seen any reason to ask for the number either. I'm about accommodating a child's needs, not the number's needs.
I have my own IQ number. While it's in the range that this author clearly (still) envies, I haven't actually found it to be all that useful in practical terms. I absolutely don't need my DD's in order to bolster my own ego. I was left feeling incredibly sad for this woman's child... and significant anger and sadness directed at the author herself, who clearly needs to just grow up and get over herself already.
