After talking about raising the second child, let’s talk about motherhood. I found that being a mother have improved a lot of my skills and brain power, which makes me smarter than before I became a mother.

Problem Solver – All mothers are good problem solver. Hey your child didn’t come with an operating manual. When he/she cries, you do not have any reference books to tell you what went wrong. However we were given a maternal instinct to detect it. Have you ever heard a saying, “Before a child asked for things, a mother already knows what he wants.” Chinese saying “Kat hey til mei, ngor the ji lei yu mud” (in Cantonese).

Networking – Hey mothers are good in finding other mothers with the same problem and discuss a solution. Many mothers today are well verse with the Internet. Some who has no IT background but could pick up blogging, chat and make full use of parenting forums. How cool is tat?

Creativity – I am not sure about you but I use my creativity to deal with a child or discipline them. When your child is rude or does things that are not right, what do you do? You could cane them? That is one option but not necessary the best or give the best result. It may not even be suitable method for certain types of children. For me, my hubby makes this song up. It goes like this “Shame Shame, all the monkeys know your name”. Every time my children do something rude, I sing that. They laugh and know that it is not a right thing to do because they do not want monkeys to know them. :giggles: Anyway, this only works for children below 5. As they grow other, I have to be creative about the methods I used to discipline them.

Resourceful – I read up a lot about pregnancy, breastfeeding parenthood, children behavior and anything about children. I bet most of you also find out vaccinations and diseases related to children like chicken pox, measles, UTI, etc. I may not be an expert but enough to know how to deal with it.

Multitasking – I do this most of the time especially when they were a baby. I have to carry them to pacify them while using another hand to make milk or express my milk, and talk to them at the same time. Today, I need to use this skill to handle 2 requests at the same time as I have 2 demanding children and a hubby.

Read more about this in this article: How motherhood makes you smarter.