Freakonomics

I just discovered the Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything Blog based from the 2005 non-fiction book written by Steven Levitt and Steven J. Dubner!  My good friend, who had loaned me her copy last summer, claimed that the book was a huge rage during her years at Berkeley for its "super liberal" perspective. Super liberal indeed, but nevertheless, the book was extremely interesting for its take on the many controversial topics i.e chapter 4, which claims that the legalized role of abortion may have lowered crime rates. Who would have thought right?

My personal favorite chapter discusses the role of parenting & its effects on education. According to Freakonomics,  it doesn't matter on the number of how many books you have in your home or how many visits to museums that will make a child successful in school. What plays the biggest role in determining if a child will graduate college on time is the mother's age at the time of her first baby. The magic number appears to be 30 years of age. Phew! I still got time! :)

(Side note: Since many of my friends and I are starting to reach that next step in life aka career, marriage, and possibly children it's definitely good to know that we're on the right track in terms of age. And, there's NO rush to have babies, no matter how cute they might be.)

On a final note, I find the blog utterly fascinating with many controversial topics similar to the book-Why Do so Few Men Graduate College in Their Early Twenties?


There's also a sequel titled Superfreakonomics that I gotta get my hands on!!

Goodness, my grading and report cards will NEVER get done...