It's just that most of the people around us think that we're "too perfect" and we frankly kind of intimidate others because we're... well, I'm going to set aside my qualms and say it-- we're ultra-competent and we seldom make foreseeable errors, because we are very good at thinking things through and dealing with the prevention end of things rather than the consequences one, if that makes sense. We also seem like control freaks because we read the fine print, we ask a LOT of questions, etc.
We don't really judge people who don't, mind you, and we realize that most people
can't really do what we do, and that even a few people who could don't want to be as uptight about it all as we are in the process. It takes a tremendous amount of bandwidth to have a plan A, B, and C for any system failure in your life, and to take preventative action to make sure that none of that is needed to start with. We're people who actually
are prepared for very rare natural disasters, for example.
But yeah, it means that the average person who knows us kind of takes an unholy GLEE in pointing out our errors to all and sundry. Preferably by pointing them out as broadly as is practical. I backed my (7yo) car into a concrete post about 20" high, for example... and there were good reasons why that happened when it did, but it
was fundamentally a bonehead mistake on my part. But one of the neighbors has taken great delight in pointing it out to me. Three times.
I've run into that too. I find that, 1) I really irritate people when I talk through the entire process of what I am thinking and often do better to pare it down mentally before I speak to essentially give the Clif note version of what I am asking/saying/etc., and 2) I, too, have some people who think that I am a control freak. Dd12 tells me that a mom of a kid she's known forever and who has, over the years, had some difficulty with kid comparisons, has told her on more than one occasion that I need to start drinking.
This thread, as a whole, though brings up an interesting side thought for me. I've long since accepted that there are LOG and, while I am more gifted than some who are in the gifted range, there are certainly those who are much more gifted than am I. There are threads here, and conversations IRL among very intelligent people, where there are aspects that I don't *get* at first glance, but I don't wind up feeling like the non-gifted parent as a result. I wonder, and here's my long round about way of getting there, if perhaps posters who feel like the non-gifted parents of gifted progeny are either expecting to be as gifted in all areas as everyone else who posts here (holding themselves to too high of a standard) or perhaps are dealing with differing levels of giftedness in themselves than the members whose posts they are reading frequently.
Ultimately, I guess that this runs back to a question of the heritability of intelligence to me. Do any or many of you feel like you have children who are many SDs above you in terms of IQ? I do feel that at least one of my dds is probably somewhat more intelligent than am I. Full disclosure: I belong to Mensa and would qualify for things like Intertel (99th percentile group) although I've never seen the point in joining. I'd say that I'm HG, but definitely not PG. My *more able than me* dd is just a tad shy of 99.9th ability, but really not quite there. My other one is hard to say b/c she is wildly 2e. One IQ test says that she is 99.9th+ and others say that she's about where I am or perhaps a tad below.
I tend to lean toward a mental model of intellect that puts a lot of stock in innate ability that can be lost or developed, but not developed out of thin air (i.e. - a kid is very unlikely to be gifted if it isn't in the innate mix/genetic pool). That's where I tend to think that those who have kids who are tested at the 98th percentile+ FSIQ/GAI (or something close to there) are unlikely to be truly "non-gifted."
