Every parent wants to have a smart and successful child that they can be proud of. This causes parents to do everything in their capacity to ensure that their child can have the best opportunities to excel in the future. However, what if we told you that all it boils down to is the day and month in which your child is born? According to this theory, if your baby is born within these months, they will grow up to be smart and successful. Parents always strive to provide the best for their children.
According to the website gocompare, the majority of the billionaires on the Forbes’ list of the world’s wealthiest people are born between the months of January and February. Gocompare makes use of Forbes’ list of the wealthiest people by looking at their date of birth. According to the website, more than 22% of the wealthiest people in the world are born between the 22nd of December and the 28th of February. This means that all these people share something in common: they are either a Capricorn or an Aquarius in terms of their star sign.
Bill Murphy, Jr., executive editor of the Mid.com, makes a connection to this theory by looking at one of Malcolm Gladwell’s best selling books: Outliers. In his book, Gladwell explains how most of the successful players in Canada’s hockey team are born in the early months of the year. Murphy goes on to explain that, “It’s at least plausible that children under the signs of Aquarius or Capricorn are more likely to be slightly older than their school year peers. It’s not a stretch to conclude that maybe something similar to the hockey players happens. They’re born earlier, so they’re a little more mature. They’re treated like leaders. Things might come to them a little easier in school, on average–just because they’ve had more time to grow up than their schoolmates.”
In a research paper titled “Left Behind by Birth Month,” by Ingeborg F. Solli, the performance of children over the course of their life is studied with regards to their month of birth. Solli finds that children in Norway seem to perform better in their school years if they are born earlier in the year. Furthermore, Solli believes that children born during the late months of the year find it difficult to even achieve a high school degree. These children tend to earn significantly lower sums of income by the age of 30 as compared to children born earlier in the year. Solli states, “There is a strong and close to linear effect of birth month on GPA: The oldest pupils in class perform significantly better than their younger peers. The result is robust to the exclusion of background characteristics and to adding mother fixed effects.” This data ties into Murphy’s theory that those who are born earlier in the year perform better than others since they have a greater sense of maturity.
At the end of the day, it is just a theory. The success of children depends on the way they are nurtured by their parents. If you are the sort who believes in such theories and feel that the evidence is more than enough to make you a believer, you can always try to make sure that your kids are the oldest in their school year. Just make sure you get under the sheets between the months of March and May.
