That’s also me, 100%, and all three of my sons are the same way (no daughters). I’m quite sure my grandfather on my dad’s side was too. My dad encouraged me to think for myself and ask questions, and I’ve done that with my kids too. None of us “suffer fools gladly”. Now my oldest son has two young kids of his own, and they plan to home school, so I’m 100% certain this trait will pass to his kids.

It’s a “problem-solving” mindset that runs in the family. I strongly suspect that, 40 or 75 or 100 years ago, this was commonly viewed as the proper way to arrive at a good solution to any given issue. People were more practical-minded, I think (but that’s just an opinion, I’ve never seen any research on it).

Some posit that some specific event or series of events in childhood or young adulthood impels them. Although, I have read a lot of biographies, and could never never nail it down to any one particular experience.

Personally, I think think that some people simply have the ability to perceive a leadership vacuum and they “step up” simply because they expect that that is what is required of them. Then, discovering that they have a talent for it, they continue to exercise it.

I don’t find it any surprise that the children of great people often disappoint. Such persons are often nearly fully occupied with their work and don’t make the best parents.

In 1971 I was part of the crew on a flight from LA to Knoxville. The country was in recession and the airline business was in the tank. We had one passenger for the entire flight – Jane Wyman. She was going to receive an award from the University of Tennessee for her body of work as an actress. The stewardesses (That’s what we called them then) told us she was gracious, but also quite proper and not particularly warm. She did stop by the cock[pit to say hello in Knoxville, but she didn’t make small talk. I’ve often thought it would be hard for two ambitious actors to be married. Differences in the caliber of roles and success, periods with no roles at all, on screen love scenes, and periods of separation would be difficult to handle for most people. Like most men at the time, Reagan probably wanted to be the boss and have his wife be dependent on him, even though Jane Wyman was more successful than he was. She probably resented his attitude. At least that would be my guess.

I once read an autobiography by Michael Reagan. It was not a happy childhood. He felt much like an odd man out. Not really wanted by either household, IIRC. That he finally became a success in radio and political commentary and was reconciled with Reagan was high point for him.

Alexander the Great is a notable exception. Of course he has been accused of involvement in his father’s assassination, which was committed by one of Philip’s bodyguards, but most modern historians doubt that Alexander was involved in any kind of conspiracy against his father.

In the peer-pressure push of youth, it’s easy to see how the socialist simple solutions that are so “obvious” to those not yet living with real adult responsibility seem so attractive. It’s sad that, once the Dem side is chosen, the preferred method of defense of the Dem policies is the attack against Rep intentions and a failure to achieve perfection. In Trump’s case, also against his words, even if they need to be misstated before attacked.

There’s a big amount of heritability of intelligence. Probably a lot more mix of other Big 5 personality traits (or Myers’ Briggs 4-pairs). Wanting to be “in with the in-crowd” seems to always be a huge influence, and conservative independence and responsible has seldom been cool.

Patti wrote a remembrance of her mother in 2016, in which she talks about Nancy’s childhood:

In 1924, a 3-year-old girl named Anne Frances Robbins, who had been nicknamed Nancy, was taken to her cousin’s home by her mother and left there for five years. Her mother Edith Davis was a working actress who had gotten divorced shortly after her child was born. She tried taking the baby on the road, putting her backstage in a trunk that served as a cradle while she was onstage. But it became too hard, so she left the child with her older sister’s family in Bethesda, Md., and she would visit occasionally. On one of those visits, after years had passed, she told her daughter that she’d gone on an ocean cruise and had met a doctor whom she planned to marry. Nancy was uprooted again and taken to Chicago. She now had a new father and a stepbrother. The definition of family was an ever changing palette. …

The man whom she would eventually call her father, Loyal Davis, was a harsh taskmaster. He was a neurosurgeon and a rigid perfectionist. I was frightened of my grandfather until the day he died. Everything had to be orderly, precise and punctual. Growing up, my mother desperately wanted to please him. She probably thought he might leave if she didn’t.

I never said you were the one raising the subject.

I merely made some statements about regression to the mean and what it means and what it refers to. You are fixating on this for some reason; I have no idea why.

My entire comment contained general remarks about regression towards the mean, plus other factors involved in the psychology of being the child of a famous person. I addressed it to you because you were making comments about intellect as well as other things, and I thought you might be interested. I assume lots of people read the comments here, so when I address someone I also often put general information or general remarks in the comment as well.

Instead, you take offense at something I never said, and you start ordering me around.

That’s a response to one discrete thing that he said. Since my other remarks referred to people’s performance and behavior in a range of endeavours, you haven’t much excuse pretending that I was discussing intellect and intellect alone. I wasn’t even the one who raised the subject.

What do you mean, “stop this”?

Are you now giving me orders?

Take a good look at your comment here, which you begin by quoting Chester Draws’ statement “If your starting point is Reagan’s brains and talents”, and then you go on to write:

Reagan and his brother were able to leverage the intellect they had quite well. Their academic history (a college degree earned at a time when perhaps 6% of each cohort was enrolled in baccalaureate programs) given their background and given the inclement economic circumstances of the times suggests they were well above the median intellectually. I doubt Reagan on a psychometric tests would have outscored any other post-war president, however. He might have scored near Kennedy, Johnson, and GW Bush. Intellect is only one element of performance. Barack Obama has ample intellect, but he’s never known what to do with it.

A lot there about intellect. So I repeat what I wrote here. I wasn’t assuming you necessarily thought intellect was the only element involved in regression to the mean; I was explaining that for anyone reading.

I have been polite to you. Start reciprocating or my patience—which is generally pretty vast—will wear very thin.