We know it or at least we suspect it: having a child is not always a cakewalk and above all, it is clearly not easy. A very serious American study has just looked into the question and according to it, having a son would make you age faster than having a daughter.
Perhaps during your childhood or your adolescence, you were more or less turbulent; maybe you are a parent yourself and your child is giving you a hard time, or just wearing you out. Having a child is a profession in its own right that can be lethal and of course, all cases are different.
Over 13,000 parents surveyed for the study
However, an official study by the National Library of Medicine, which belongs to the US government, looked a little more seriously at the question: does having a son or a daughter have a different impact on the aging of parents? According to the results, it would seem so: raising a boy would be, on average, more exhausting and would reduce the cognitive abilities of both father and mother.
To conduct this study, the scientists focused on volunteers who were parents (necessarily) and who had at least one child: 82.3% of participants had at least one son and 61.6% were women. In total, 13,000 adults aged 50 or over were surveyed.
Boys more exhausting than girls?
And if we were to retain one thing from this study, it is that having sons would actually be more harmful, on the cognitive aspect of the parents, than having daughters. Over time. Scientists don’t understand exactly why and how themselves, but say there are no biological explanations: it’s more the way of interacting with boys that lowers cognitive skills. A rather social factor, therefore.
Concretely, parents who have a son see their cognitive abilities decrease more rapidly than those who do not have a son (within the study, it should be specified). Moreover, those with multiple sons experience an even faster decline than those with only daughters.
Obviously, let’s try to remember that we must not make a generalization, especially since the study focuses only on American parents, who therefore respond to specific social codes that we do not find everywhere in the world. Do you believe in it, on your side?