The Maternal Advantage

If You've Raised Kids, You Can Manage Anything
by Ann Crittenden

(Page 5 of 6)

It is frequently assumed that the ability to handle multiple tasks at the same time is a female characteristic. In his wildly successful one-man show "Defending the Caveman," comedian Rob Becker demonstrates that focusing like a laser beam on a single goal is a guy thing, while taking it all in, doing a dozen things at once - gathering fruits and berries while chewing hides, nursing the baby and keeping an eye out for predators - is the female modus operandi. As one woman summed it up. "I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once!"

Psychologists have known for some time that the female brain is different from the male. Women tend to gather in more details of the world around them, and integrate that data into a more holistic picture of the world. Anthropologist Helen Fisher calls this "web thinking," and contrasts it with men's greater propensity for linear thinking and mental compartmentalization.

Now new research is linking the adaptability of the female brain to changes in hormone levels associated with maternity. It is beginning to appear that motherhood, and caring for the young, may actually promote enhanced brain functioning. A study done on mice at two universities in Virginia has found that dendrites, special cell structures which are necessary for communication between neurons, doubled in pregnant and nursing lab mice. The number of the brain's glial cells, which act as communication conductors, also doubled. The mother mice learned mazes more quickly, and were bolder and more curious than control animals. A subsequent study found that the new neural structures and pathways - and the associated gains in learning and spatial memory - were long-lasting, until the equivalent of eighty years in a human being.

In one experiment on pregnant and nursing rats, the test animals were placed in the middle of a well-lit, five-foot-square open space, a nerve-wracking place for a prey animal like a rat, whose primary defense is to hide in the dark. The exposed mother rats were bolder, less fearful, more likely than the others to explore for food, according to University of Richmond neuropsychologist Craig Kinsley, who conducted the study with Randolph Macon psychologist Kelly Lambert. In another study at Monkey Jungle in Miami, Lambert and graduate student Anne Garrett found that marmosets who had experience caring for young were also more efficient than childless animals in foraging for hidden Fruit Loops. In preliminary pilot studies, male marmosets who were fathers were also better at remembering where Fruit Loops were hidden than childless animals.

Lambert, thirty-nine, is planning new experiments with primates, and she admits that her research is partially motivated by her own experience. The mother of two daughters, ages five and nine, she is writing a book, teaching, conducting research, and serving as chairman of the psychology department at Randolph Macon. To get it all done, she often works until well past midnight, long after everyone else has gone to bed. She says she feels smarter, more daring, more productive, and in less need of sleep than at any time in her life. "One of the most enriching things for our brains is novelty," she told a reporter. "New connections are made with novelty, and every day there's something new with the kids."

The measured gains in mammalian maternal brain functioning should hardly be surprising. By all logic, our relatively defenseless female ancestors would have had to have been extremely clever and brave to keep their infants alive during all the years of helpless dependence. If human mothers hadn't been more enterprising and creative than your average Flintstone, homo sapiens would have never have made it out of the Stone Age. Scientists are learning more every day about neuroplasticity, the adult human brain's capacity to keep on developing well past puberty. Imagine - we may eventually discover that busy, concerned mothers are to brain-building what Arnold Schwarzenegger was to bodybuilding!

Interestingly, several of the women I interviewed described their multitasking in almost physical terms, as if it were brain exercise. Film producer Sarah Pillsbury said, "There are times in film production when you have to think about so many things, in so many parts of your brain - the sheer range of thinking - that I don't even know if men are biologically equipped to do it. At the very least you get better at it by exercising all parts of your brain simultaneously - the creative side, the efficient, practical side, and the relationship side.... For example, when you're producing a film, you have to be simultaneously thinking of the story; the physical needs in terms of telling the story - how much crew, what about the sets, et cetera; how much time you have in the day to shoot; the moods of the different actors; how do you add something to the schedule; or how can you shorten the schedule to get out of an expensive location; and on and on."

I was also struck by the comments of mothers who said that engaging in a variety of quite different activities actually enabled them to be fresher and more creative in their work. As organizational psychologist Marian Ruderman, whose children are thirteen and ten, described it, "My children took my mind off work stress and made me more objective about my work, because they took me into another domain in which I was deeply embedded. It is such a different domain of life that it refreshes you. It gives you a completely different frame of reference, and enables you to be freer to think more creatively about the issues you confront in your professional life. A lot of good ideas came to me while I was diapering the baby."

Sue Shellenbarger, the Work & Family columnist for the Wall Street Journal, has also been told by many high-achieving women that their best ideas come while playing with their kids, jogging, or just relax- ing. The brain doesn't always work in lockstep, linear fashion, and a change of scene or focus can stimulate ideas and connections that might not emerge otherwise. Many people find that some of their most creative insights and breakthroughs come when they "get away from it all" while on vacation, hiking, gardening, or whatever. We now know that children and even housework can do the same trick. The late Felice Schwartz, an authority on women in the corporate world, once told me that in her early years as a stay-at-home mother she came up with some of her better ideas while doing the laundry.

Finally, mothers' capacity to take in more information helps them detect the early warning signs of change. One of the managers participating in the study by the Center for Creative Leadership reported that her ability to anticipate problems had improved "tenfold" since she became a parent. She worked in an organization that had undergone a lot of change, taking many people by surprise. She saw people in meetings scratching their heads because they didn't know what had happened to them. But she hadn't been surprised at all because, as she put it, "When you have kids, you have all of your antennae out ... As a parent I have to be able to know by a cough if my kid is going to be sick. If so, I'd better be thinking about childcare tomorrow morning. That's my life.... It's like you're like that all the time. There is no time your guard is down.... You read signs much better because of parenting."

She sounds like a prehistoric mother in the wild, constantly alert for signs of danger.

The Difference between Mom and Dad Brains

This story was emailed to countless mothers around the time of Mother's Day 2003.

Mom and Dad were watching TV when Mom said, "I'm tired, and it's getting late. I think I'll go to bed." She went to the kitchen to make sandwiches for the next day's lunches. Rinsed out the popcorn bowls, took meat out of the freezer for supper the following evening, checked the cereal box levels, filled the sugar container, put spoons and bowls on the table, and started the coffee pot for brewing the next morning. She then put some wet clothes in the dryer, put a load of clothes into the wash, ironed a shirt, and secured a loose button. She picked up the game pieces left on the table and put the telephone book back into the drawer. She watered the plants, emptied a wastebasket, and hung up a towel to dry. She yawned and stretched and headed for the bedroom. She stopped by the desk and wrote a note to the teacher, counted out some cash for the field trip, and pulled a textbook out from hiding under the chair. She signed a birthday card for a friend, addressed and stamped the envelope, and wrote a quick note for the grocery store. She put both near her purse. Mom then washed her face with 3-in-1 cleanser, put on her Night Solution and age-fighting moisturizer, brushed and flossed her teeth, and filed her nails. Dad called out, "I thought you were going to bed."

"I'm on my way," she said. She put some water into the dog's dish and put the cat outside, then made sure the doors were locked. She looked in on each of the kids and turned out their bedside lamp, hung up a shirt, threw some dirty socks in the hamper, and had a brief conversation with the one still up doing homework. In her own room, she set the alarm, laid out clothing for the next day, straightened up the shoe rack. She added three things to her six most important things to do list. She said her prayers, and visualized the accomplishment of her goals. About that time, Dad turned off the TV and announced to no one in particular. "I'm going to bed." And he did...without another thought. Anything extraordinary here? Wonder why women live longer ...? 'CAUSE WOMEN ARE MADE FOR THE LONG HAUL.

Copyright © 2005 Ann Crittenden

About the Author

Ann Crittenden is an award-winning journalist and the author of three previous books, including The Price of Motherhood, a New York Times Notable Book of 2001. Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, she has written for Fortune, The New York Times, Newsweek, and many other national publications. She lectures before dozens of diverse organizations each year and is on the board of the International Center for Research on Women.