Comments on: Grandmothers Raise Civilizations

By: 2012 | I Make Up Worlds

2012 | I Make Up Worlds — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 10:33:08 +0000

[...] of life”: It is just so cool! And Athena Andreadis has a lovely post on human evolution and The Grandmother Hypothesis: “that the presence of grandmothers allowed more children to reach [...]

By: Walden2

Walden2 — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 18:35:07 +0000

My grandmother told me stories about the Gypsies who would come wandering through her agricultural (read rural) community in their wagons as a child (circa 1910). Her parents warned my grandmother never to get near them, as the Gypsies would grab her and take her away to be eaten later.

In reality the Gypsies did often stop to ask for food, but of the non-human variety. One time when my great-grandmother was newly married she gave a Gypsy woman something to eat, the woman told my GG her fortune in gratitude. She said my GG would have first a son and then a daughter, and that would be all her children.

Turns out the Gypsy woman was right. Then my GG went and had eight more kids after that!

By: Athena

Athena — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 18:52:29 +0000

Elizabeth Warren quotes such studies in her very informative talks. Of course, the extended family has its own problems (especially if it’s patrilocal).

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 18:49:32 +0000

My wife is from China and was raised by her grandmother, and it was agreed to from the earliest days of our courtship that her parents would come to live with us. There is no way we would have been able to achieve the level of material wealth we have now if not for having my wife’s parents to raise our kids while we ran our businesses.

I wonder if anyone has done a study of how economically draining a nuclear family is compared to an extended family. If you have to pay for daycare, then basically, mom is working for the daycare company. If grandma is taking care of the kids, then mom’s paycheck can benefit the entire family and will result in more value in the long run than if dad, mom, and grandma each work outside of the home and have to pay others for daycare, cooking and home maintenance.

By: Athena

Athena — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 15:33:10 +0000

There are plenty of scary stories (all fairytales were far bloodier before they became “safe”). The fairytales I heard/read as a kid contained graphic abuse, rapes, grisly deaths…

Also, teaching fear and wariness is part of socializing.

By: Lars

Lars — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 04:20:25 +0000

Actually, the only story that my one surviving grandmother ever told me was the one about the Babes in the Woods. The moral of which, she seemed to imply, was that small children wound up getting lost in the woods and dying of exposure at times, but small birds would come and cover them over with leaves when this happened.
I have spent decades wondering why anyone would tell a small boy this and what I was supposed to make of it. Now I realize that it very likely was passed on orally to her and shows how long folk-stories concerning regicide can last in an oral culture.

By: Walden2

Walden2 — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 19:15:03 +0000

Yes, sorry I did not clarify: My mother worked outside the home as well as an elementary school teacher. My grandmother, while not having a job with an actual paycheck et al, grew up on a farm so she worked very hard since she was a little girl.

By: Athena

Athena — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 17:43:52 +0000

You’re very welcome, Larry! I think grandparents are essential for working mothers — and mothers have worked for 99% of the time across eras and cultures (if we define “work” as additional work outside the confines of the house; of course, the latter is a full-time job itself).

By: Walden2

Walden2 — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 16:04:20 +0000

I consider my mother’s mother to have been my second mother, as she was there for me when both my parents worked (at a time when that was still not the norm it is today) while growing up and dealing with other issues. I honestly do not know what would have become of me and my sister in certain respects without her presence (and my grandfather’s, I might add, as he tried to teach me certain other skills about growing up as a man).

Thank you for showing us outside the box again, Athena. I know it can seem a thankless job, but paradigms do change even if slowly once it is introduced long enough into society. I have seen such changes in attitude and thinking in my lifetime.