It’s official: motherhood does make you smarter. Sam Pope talked to US journalist, author and mother Katherine Ellison about her ground-breaking book The Mommy Brain to find out why your brain doesn’t turn to mush during motherhood.

• Did people joke about your ‘diminishing’ brain
  capacity when you became a mum?I think I probably made the most self-deprecating comments, as women
  tend to do. I was reacting to the strong stereotype that women get stupid
  when they have babies. But this can be a self-fulfilling prophesy: if
  you’re convinced (because of your own or others’ expectations) that you’ll
  do worse as a mom, you probably will. Whereas the more confident you go
  into the experience, the more you and your kids will get out of it. 
• How does motherhood make you smarter then? How did it
  make you, personally, smarter? For the past 20 years, psychologists have been expanding our notion
  of ‘smarts’, taking it well beyond the simple ability to add sums in your
  head to the much broader realm of surviving well in the world, achieving
  your goals, coping with stress and having successful relationships, at
  home, with friends and at work.

  In the book, I detail five ways that motherhood can make you smarter,
  in terms of perceptiveness, resilience, efficiency, motivation and emotional
  intelligence. There is some scientific evidence to back up each of these
  areas, and I’ve certainly felt it to be true in my own experience. Mostly
  I’ve been impressed at how having children is like a boot camp in developing
  emotional intelligence, a very useful skill in all realms of your life.
  Moms (and of course many dads) are more invested in their children than
  in any other relationship; thus we work harder to make the relationship
  work… and often that effort pays off in new or strengthened capacities
  to negotiate, manipulate, resolve conflicts and empathise.

  Women are supposedly very emotionally intelligent
  but is this as sought-after a commodity as a business brain, for example?

  One thing I can tell you is that many big businesses in the US, and
  I’d assume in the UK as well, are spending a fortune training people in
  emotional intelligence: there’s a cottage industry of consultants and
  programmes ever since Daniel Goleman’s breakthrough book in 1995 on the
  subject. I heard just this week about ‘empathy training’ for doctors.
  With so much going wrong in our culture, one very encouraging development
  is that people are putting new value on emotional connections – bosses
  are slowly realising that it pays to support good morale and loyalty among
  their employees, and even politicians are starting, if too slowly, to
  recognise the need to give employees more flexibility and time with their
  families.

  If oxytocin can help improve a woman’s capacity
  for learning and memory, why do so many women complain of forgetfulness during pregnancy and beyond?

  I devoted a whole chapter about the mental downside of child-rearing,
  especially in our culture. But I point out that what we often think is
  the inevitable curse of the “mommy brain” is mere sleep deprivation (which
  is avoidable with a modicum of social support) and stress (which can also
  be minimised). The point is that women need a lot more support than we’re
  getting when we have children: the whole important job is supremely undervalued.

   What about dads?

  There is basic research, with rodents and primates, showing males do
  make gains just from being around their young ‘uns, though as one scientist
  joked, ‘They hit a glass ceiling’. Gains for females appear to be much
  greater. One interesting insight is that fathers are prone to marked hormonal
  fluctuations, similar to women though much milder, and, interestingly,
  with an impact dependent on how close they are to their wives and children.

  Are the brain-boosting benefits of pregnancy and motherhood temporary?

  This is one of the most interesting things that researchers have found:
  in lab animals, the gains appear to be permanent, long after the pups
  have left the nest. This highly motivated learning stays with you: it’s
  why mothers never forget how to rock a baby to sleep… or do 20 things
  in a day. As for oxytocin, a Swedish expert on the hormone told me she’s
  convinced that once women get the large dose that comes with labor and
  delivery and nursing, they are always more prone to its influence, which
  can appear in many ways in daily life (oxytocin levels can be boosted
  apparently by making love, getting a massage or merely experiencing trust
  in a business negotiation).

  In what ways can women sharpen their minds?

  There are so many ways! Novelty is high on the list – children naturally
  bring novelty into your life, but you can also seek out adventures, new
  relationships, hobbies and games. Researchers are constantly finding out
  how important a network of close relationships is in keeping the brain
  fit into old age, and women and mothers excel in maintaining such a network.

• what babyworlders think of being a mum