Of course we (mostly) think our children are cute or else we grind their bones to make our bread. It’s nature’s protection mechanism. Objectively as possible, I think my daughter is pretty cute right now and has the potential to be very attractive as a young woman. Sometimes this worries me; since she’s not blond with large breasts I don’t think she sees herself as anything special. My son is probably around average, although he looks like me so of course I think he’s the good looking one.
As for the smart thing, neither of my kids are super geniuses (much to the chagrin of my son, who wanted to grow up to be an Evil Genius) but both are fairly smart. I know what their IQ scores are on the test they had to take to get into the advanced programs at school. I’d guess a lot of people who hang out here will have the same result.
Og knows this doesn’t make them perfect (I think only FairyChatMom had one of those).
Since I don’t have kids, I’ll give you a completely honest run-down of my nieces and nephews:
Niece 17: Average looking. She has a sort-of alternative/punk sensibility and doesn’t take her looks too seriously. She’d be cute if she put in the effort. Smart as a whip.
Niece 14: Average looking. Needs to drop a few pounds. Like most 14-year-olds, takes fashion/makeup/etc. very seriously. Her intelligence doesn’t strike me much one way or the other, so I’m going to say average intelligence.
Nephew 13: Could stand to lose 100 pounds (yes, I said “100”). Would still be homely. Apparently brings home straight A’s, but for all I know he could be in Special Ed. His intelligence doesn’t strike me much one way or the other, so I’m going to say average intelligence.
Niece 10: Definitely going through an awkward phase, so for now she’s all knees and elbows. She has flaming red hair, and IMHO she’ll be a stunner when she grows out of her awkwardness. Smart as a whip.
Nephew 8: One look at him and you think: “That boy’s gonna have a job with his name on his shirt.” Conversations with him bear this out.
Nephew 7 (possibly 8 by now): Will probably be handsome in a swishy, Robert-Pattinson kind-of way. Something tells me that he probably isn’t going to grow up to like girls, however. Seems to be pretty sharp.
Niece 2: Cute as a bug, but aren’t all toddlers? No idea as to her intelligence.
I have two kids. The eldest got a perfect score on her GREs, so that handles the intelligence part. She also worked as an actress as a kid because lots of agents and casting directors loved her look.
I won’t answer for my second child, because that would be bragging.
Just found this picture of my 7yo, this is her 6th birthday. It’s totally her. Except now she has half-grown big teeth in front…but you can see how she’s sort of a cute little gnome.
I’m actually stunned our kids are as cute as they are–we fully expected ogre-children. I mean, I was horribly awkward and my husband’s brothers are all ogres, as are mine. Who knows how they’ll turn out.
I am greatly encouraged by the parents in this poll who have realistic assessments of their kids. I used to work at FAO Schwarz in San Fransicso and had to endure hundreds of people claiming their kids were above average or even capable of the standard for their age range. I mean SOMEONE has to be below average by definition, right?
99% of the time I worked there someone would say “I’m looking for: X” I’d say “how old is your child?” They’d say “Well he’s Y, but more like a Y…PLUS THREE!” Well I’d show them the X for the Y plus Three and they’d lose all the color in their face and say “maybe not so much?” I wish just one time ONE TIME someone had said “Well he’s five years old, but he’s a little slow for his age.” I could’ve helped so much. I mean “this has this but encourages this.” Why do parents have such a blind eye? It’s not about you, for crying out loud.
I’m not posting any pics - my kids are getting a little too old for that - but I’ll share an anecdote from this weekend:
I called home on Saturday from Prague. I’m working in Europe and work wouldn’t allow me to get home for the holiday weekend. So my 12 year old son gets on the line, and I’m tell him that I’m in Prague.
His response: shouldn’t you throw someone out a window or something?
As for the poll, with three sons I’m perfectly willing to admit that they are not all strikingly handsome, or Albert Einsteins. But at this point I’m just happy that they’re not ogres, or Jack the Rippers.
My kids are both cute (aren’t they all?), but I think my older daughter will be gorgeous when she grows up and she is probably near average in intelligence (maybe a bit higher). My younger daughter will probably be of average looks when she grows up (though she sure is cute now), but she is wicked smart. I have no doubts she will run circles around most people as she gets older. Here’s a picture of both of them from Easter 2008.
A parent always thinks their own kids are beautiful.
Truth is, though, that with kids it’s hard to gauge how they’ll turn out, either in terms of looks or brains. Kids that are cute at 5 sometimes are nothing special when they’re 18, and the ugly kid sometimes turns out beautiful. It works with brains, too; the kid who starts out smart might slow down later and the kid who starts out slowly might gain a lot of ground later on.
Hell, I just look at myself for a perfect example. I wasn’t a cute kid but I was smart as hell. As I aged, I gained looks and lost (relative to my peers) brains. In terms of smarts it was like a 1500 meter race where I sprinted ahead in the first lap and the field caught up to me in the second half; in terms of looks it was precisely the opposite.
Eh, it wouldn’t particularly surprise me if the children of people who tend to spend their free time hanging out on an internet message board are in fact, smarter then the average population.
(I have no kids, but my pets are all ugly and dumb)
