Kids get mum's intelligence

If today’s Daily Mirror newspaper is to be believed, there is likely to be an almighty roar going up any time soon – as millions of children around the UK celebrate an important revelation.

For, according to the red top, the kids inherit their intelligence from their mums and not their dads!

I can hear coffee cups crashing to the floor and doors being slammed all over the place as I break this news to you.

But hold on a minute… be honest with yourself: who do you want your child taking after – you or their mother?

It’s a question I haven’t really spent much time grappling with, to be honest. It’s a no-brainer. My wife is an Oxford University graduate, which beats my distinctly average education hands-down. She also has emotional intelligence I don’t possess.

On the plus side, I am better at banging in a few nails and hanging pictures, so I like to consider myself her equal!

Twice as likely

To be serious for a minute, it turns out there's actually a scientific reason kids inherit their intelligence from their mums.

Numerous studies have shown that the X chromosome is responsible for carrying intelligence.

Women have two of these (XX) while men have only one (XY). This means our wives and partners are twice as likely to pass on their intelligence to their children than the fathers are.

I have five children (a boy and four girls), and while they love me as much as they do their mum, I know whose brainpower they want to have inherited. And it isn’t mine.

So that’s it then, the argument that has been raging for centuries is now settled.

I think it’s time to settle down on the settee with a beer and watch some football. My brain is aching after all this thinking and writing. Fancy joining me?