September 8, 2014 • 39 mins
According to the "grandmother hypothesis," humans have grandmas, nanas and bubbies to thank for their longer lifespans. In this episode, Cristen and Caroline reveal the compelling science and evolution behind these important maternal figures.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from house Supports
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline. And today on the podcast, we are
celebrating Grandparents Day, which is happening on September seven, and
(00:24):
we're focusing in the first half of the podcast on
grandmothers and particularly how grandmother's, at least according to one
evolutionary theory, are to thank for kind of everything. That's right.
Grandmothers are responsible for their being people, which makes sense,
(00:45):
but they're also responsible for people living longer, being healthier,
having bigger brains, and also eating chocolate chip cookies. That's right.
My grandmother's never made me chocolate chip cocase. My grandmother
may she rest in Eas used to make me and
my siblings what she called cowboy cookies, which are basically
(01:07):
oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips in them, and I have
the recipe, but they still don't taste like the ones
that she made because they're not infused with GRANDMAA. I know,
I know, but I digress. Let's get out of out
of my nostalgic kitchen and my brain and get down
to the grandmother hypothesis because This is super fascinating and
(01:32):
we'll give I hope all listeners a newfound appreciation for
this role. That's right. And so if we're going to
look at evolutionary theories and how grandmothers are basically responsible
for all of humanity surviving and succeeding in life. When
you look at animals, female animals typically don't live past
(01:52):
their reproductive years by much. Among humans, however, we have
grandma's and they outlive their reproductive years by a cup
of decades and so um. Evolutionary theorists and researchers have
looked into this and found that grandmothers have really played
a critical role in the evolution of our human longevity. Yeah,
(02:13):
because it really doesn't make all that much sense that
women go through menopause and then hang out because you know,
grandfather's exists in quotes, because they can keep reproducing at infinitum.
Whereas you after, you would think of going to evolutionary
(02:34):
theory once women have hit their reproductive peak and then
gotten a whole series of hot flashes and all of
these to go along with that, that we would soon
thereafter die off. But no, so if you go back
to nineteen fifty seven, there's this evolutionary biologist named George
Williams who proposes something called the stopping early hypothesis, and
(02:58):
his idea was, at middle aged women men needed baby
free time in order to usher their younger children into adulthood. Right,
and so this is a theory that's definitely focusing on
the children, not the grandchildren in particular. And then Williams
in the nineteen eighties is followed by American anthropologist Kristen Hawks,
(03:19):
who had a slightly different explanation for why women stick
around after menopause. She was actually inspired by the Hasda
culture of Tanzania. She noticed that older women spent their
days collecting tubers and other food for their grandkids. But
in doing so, they were working harder and longer than
(03:39):
the younger women, and they collected way more food than necessary.
So what is the deal? Why were they doing this?
So she took her notes and ended up studying other
modern hunter gatherer societies in places like Tanzania, Venezuela, and
eastern Paraguay. And she measured the muscle strength of men
and women in these communities and Wade will basically the
(04:02):
loads of food and resources that they were carrying. Found
out that women in their sixties were just as strong
as women in their twenties. She also noted, which is
very key, that the children with grandmothers or great aunts
had faster growth rates than their counterparts the kids who didn't.
And so the theory shifts from hey, women stick around
(04:24):
to usher their children into adulthood to oh, look at this,
these these older ladies are sticking around to help their
grandchildren succeed. They're super strong, and they are carrying just
armloads of tubers, their bench pressing tubers over their heads.
Giant tuba. Yes, and so. Based off these observations in
(04:45):
these modern hunter gatherer societies, Hawks develops what is known
as the grandmother hypothesis, which maintains that menopause exists in
order to divert older women's energy and resources into caring
for not only her kids, but also her grandkids, thereby
(05:06):
providing her descendants with a survival advantage. Right, and so,
in looking at these cultures and in looking way way
back in ancient societies, etcetera, etcetera, grandmothers by helping out
around the house or hut, we're basically freeing up their
daughters to have more children quickly as opposed to if
(05:26):
you look at chimpanzees who weighed about five years to
have more offspring, and so that means that you have
the most evolutionarily fit grandmothers having the most grandchildren and
therefore passing on the longevity jeans. Evolution dropped the mic.
And on top of passing on those longevity jeans and
of course gathering all those two hawks has written that
(05:51):
grandmother and gave us quote a whole array of social
capacities that are the foundation for the evolution of other
distinct human traits, including pair bonding, bigger brains, learning new skills,
and our tendency for cooperation. Well, thank you, grandmother, thank
you so much. That's right. I mean, so basically, if
(06:13):
you look back at like our ape ancestors, you know
there was a point when certain apes with larger brains
started going off and getting tools and using tools and
going farther for resources and food, and so those big
brained grandma's had to stick around and help their big
brained grand grand apes. I guess grand grow up happy
(06:33):
and healthy and eating all those tubers. Now, not everybody
is on board with the grandmother hypothesis, because that would
mean that science is too easy. There's been plenty of
people who have said, I don't know, because with the
grandmother hypothesis, you're discounting the impact in these hunter gatherer
societies of men going out and hunting and bringing back
(06:57):
this important energy low to the families as well. So
there was a paper particularly in two thousand ten that
came out called Grandmothering and Natural Selection, which basically said
that the grandmother hypothesis is too weak of a force
to really explain longevity. But then Hawks went back to
(07:22):
the drawing board and created a mathematical model to test
the hypothesis, right, And she used a hypothetical primate like
population um showing the advantages of quote, even a little
bit of grandmother, even just half of a cowboy cookie
my case. Yeah, so even just a quarter a crumb
(07:45):
of that cookie increased longevity into from ape like longevity
into the human range of about how long we live now,
And so that ended up doubling in this model the
human life span. Oh and there's a fascinating side note
to this theory because it also applies to whales, which
(08:08):
are another exception in terms of species that live past menopause.
And this was something uncovered by evolutionary biologists at the
University of Cambridge Rufus Johnson, who said they're the only
other mammal apart from us, where females have a comparable
post reproductive lifespan. What up whales? That's right? Uh? And
(08:30):
speaking of mathematical models, Johnson and Dr Michael Kent at
the University of exit A developed a model to study
the kinship dynamics that exist in Orca's short finned pilot
whales and humans. We don't have fins, but we we
fit into the same model. And these guys found that
as the post menopausal females in all of these species aged,
(08:54):
they actually ended up developing closer ties to infants. And
so they wrote, our analysis can help explain why I've
all long lived social mammals. It is specifically among great
apes and toothed whales. And I guess people too that
menopause and post reproductive helping have evolved whales. They're just
like us who knew so. While the grandmother hypothesis is
(09:19):
certainly intriguing evolutionary food for thought, is there a modern
day application to it? Gerontologists Linda Freed, who is the
Dean of Columbia University School of Public Health told the
New Republic that, eah, there could be a modern day
application to this, because, as she said, older adults constitute
(09:41):
the only increasing natural resource in the entire world. So
what if we symbolically, metaphoric, metaphorically figuratively sent our grandmothers
out collecting tubers in our modern in our modern society. Yea,
so to speak, Well, she looked at it in terms
of school free. It actually started a program that put
(10:03):
retirees in at risk public schools in nineteen cities and
found that kids who had retirees in their classrooms actually
did a lot better. And maybe this is because the
retirees are helping teachers or they're keeping kids in line.
But significantly also for the elderly participants in this program,
(10:24):
they actually did a lot better themselves too. They performed
better on health tests, happiness tests, probably because they felt useful.
I know that my dad's dad, after he retired, did
not do so well anymore. He got actually really depressed
because he had been the family man, the provider, the
working man, you know, had a great career, and once
(10:46):
he retired he just kind of felt shoved to the side. Sure, well,
and if we look more at the developing world, there
have been studies finding that it's the grandmother's in particular
who tend to benefit their families financially. So Free To
offered the example of when older black people in South
(11:08):
Africa first began receiving pensions from the post apartheid government,
the grandchildren who were living with grandmothers and particularly their granddaughters,
grew taller and gained more weight, which essentially was a
sign that they were getting healthier because the grandmothers were
(11:28):
allocating more of that pension back into their households. Right.
But interestingly, when it was the grandfathers who received the pensions,
the grandkids did not grow at all. And I thought
this whole concept sounded familiar in terms of like micro
loan programs in Africa and other regions of the world,
where it shows that when women received these loans, they
(11:53):
are the money is spent kind of more wisely. Yeah. Well,
and this also hearkens back to Kristen hawks initial research
in the eighties looking at, you know, the Hausa culture
of Tanzania and other places where those grandmothers who were
living you know with and helping out with their grandchildren,
(12:14):
the grandkids had those faster growth rates. So there is
something powerful about grandmother's and this is of course nothing
against grandfather's, but it is something incredible about grandmother's and
so we should definitely take a look speaking of grandpa's
as well, we should take a look at what being
(12:34):
a grandmother or grandfather entails today in terms of numbers
and are they happy. We have to find this out,
and we'll talk about it when we get right back
from a quick break. So when it comes to being
a grandmother grandfather in the US in particular today, because
(12:58):
that's where a lot of these statistics are going to
come from, it's becoming more and more common for that
to involve caring for your grandchildren and not just having
the grandkids dropped off for a few weeks during the summer,
perhaps in fact, the grandkids living with you full time.
(13:19):
Because in fact, as of Sensus stated from two thousand eleven,
seven million grandparents in the US had grandchildren under eighteen
living with them, and nearly half of those grandkids were
under the age of six, which that is talking about
a full time childcare load. Right. But if you look
(13:39):
at those seven million grandparents who have grandkids under eighteen
living with them, two point seven million were responsible for
the basic needs of one or more grandkids under eighteen,
and so that means that they are custodial grandparents. They're
raising the grandkids. And in terms of the grandmother grandfather
split in that you do tend to have more grandmother
(14:00):
is possibly because, as we know, men do tend to
die at earlier ages than women. But one point seven
million of that two point seven million we just mentioned
were grandmothers and one million were grandfathers, right, And when
you put these numbers in context, what they're telling us
is that more grandparents are raising their grandkids in the
(14:22):
United States. In fact, over the past forty years, the
share of US children living in a grandparents household has
more than doubled, from three percent in nineteen seventy to
seven percent in And if you look at the more
recent rise of grandkids living with grandparents, a lot of
people pinpoint it as a side effect of the Great Recession,
(14:44):
because a lot of times when you have that kind
of custodial situation, it's due to the fact that the
child's parents can't afford to take care of them in
their house, or they might be dealing with situations such
as UH, drug addictions, or they might be incarcerated. They
might also be deployed uh in a military capacity. There
(15:08):
are all sorts of reasons for that to happen, but UH,
financial reasons often come up again and again. Yeah, and
if you look at those reasons for these cohabitating living
situations specifically, there is a September national survey by the
nonprofit Generations United that looked at living situations that involved
(15:28):
the parents being there too, so it's a multigenerational household
versus when the grandparents are the custodians of the children.
And they found that the reasons for a multigenerational living
situation when the parents are there too, uh, that typically
involves unemployment or unemployment, healthcare costs, and home foreclosure. So
you're moving in together to save resources. But when the
(15:50):
grandparents are the sole caregivers for the grandkids, that tends to,
according to the survey, come about because of the grandchild
fields parents, substance abuse, but also things like incarceration, death,
mental illness, or child neglect. These kids are also more
likely to have a disability, be teenagers, and have family
(16:10):
income below the poverty line, so a lot of potential
family hardships that could lead to maybe a parent not
being able to appropriately care for a child and having
to get the grandparents help well. And to add to that,
because a lot of times when grandparents are, you know,
the soul custodians of their grandchildren, it's due to not
(16:33):
so favorable circumstances. And adding to that is the fact
that the media and family income in families where the
grandparent is responsible for children under eighteen when the parents
are not present, when you're not in that multigenerational household
set up, the meeting income is only thirty three thousand
and six D twenty seven, So there's usually a big
(16:54):
financial strain within the household as well. And there's been
a lot of research to on the ethnic and community
breakdowns of who is likelier to have grandchildren living with grandparents,
and particularly grandmothers, because again, grandkids are likelier to live
with grandmothers um and there was a research project looking
(17:19):
at stats in the US which found that black and
Hispanic grandmothers are more likely than white grandmothers to live
with grandchildren, and black grandmothers are more likely than Hispanic
grandmothers to be the primary caregivers. So there's a lot
of nuance though, even in just that sentence, because grandmother's
(17:40):
living with grandchildren could denote all sorts of things like
a grandmother not able to fully care for herself living
with her children, or maybe it's a situation where there
is someone who's incarcerated or dealing with the substance abuse problem,
and so that grandmother has sole custody. Right. And as
far as the effect on kids and grandparents in these
(18:02):
custodial grandparents situations, this is coming from the National Institute
of Mental Health. They found that custodial grandchildren have higher
levels of emotional and behavioral problems than children in the
overall US population. But I mean, I would think that,
you know, we just talked about a lot of the
scary reasons that a grandchild could live with a grandparent,
and so you know, it's I don't know the correlation
(18:25):
and causation relationship here exactly, but it seems like if
you've had something terrible happened in your family that has
led you to live with a grandparents instead of just like, oh,
I want in state tuition a college, so you know,
like they want cowboy cookies every day, right, So it
seems like these kids might have emotional turmoil in their
lives regardless, just because of the difficult circumstances that led
(18:48):
to the living situation. Yeah, they probably didn't go there
by choice. And Gregory C. Smith from Kent State University
is someone who's looked into this, and he found that
one comes to the grandmother grandchild relationship, boys do tend
to present many more difficulties than girls, and he thinks
(19:10):
that it might be because boys are likelier to have
externalizing behavior problems, So you know, it's it's sort of
self explanatory. Their emotional and behavioral difficulties are expressed outwardly
in the form of acting up or talking back or
don't mean nice to your grandma exactly, and so she'll
probably withhold the cookies. Who Whereas with girls, Smith says
(19:33):
that they're likelier to have internalizing problems where they channel
those difficulties into anxiety, fear, depression. So it's the other
side of the same coin, really. And also when it
comes to younger children between ages two and six, Laura Pittman,
(19:55):
whose researcher at Northern Illinois University found that they did
lag behind their peers in developing academic skills, right, But
they found it for preschoolers in particular, having a caring
adult who attends to their needs can help avert problem
behaviors in addition to anxiety and depression. And that makes sense, yeah,
And I mean we also have to give credit to
(20:18):
these custodial grandparents too, who according to that research project
I mentioned a minute ago, which found that in particular,
African American grandparents are likelier to impart religious and spiritual
beliefs and also discuss what they term uncomfortable issues such
(20:38):
as drugs, peer pressure, sex with their grandchildren in other words,
to help them navigate through daily challenges. And they were
also likelier to report that they spend money on their
grandchildren to help with everyday living expenses. So there are
in other words, they're doing everything that they can to
(21:00):
these kids, right, And that can lead to a lot
of strain on these custodial grandparents. I mean, there's so
many good things about having a close relationship with your
grandparents as a grandchild, but um, there's a lot of
strain that can come out of that as well. Uh Smith.
The researcher looked at things like strained relationships with birth parents,
social stigma, financial pressure, and their own increasing age related
(21:24):
health concerns. So I mean, they don't stop having to
worry about their own lives just because they're caring for
these grandkids. But often I think Smith was talking about
how easy it is to sort of overlook your own
problems when you have to when you have a kid
to take care of. And Smith also talked about studies
showing that a caregiver, in this case of grandparent and
even moderate distress can have an impact on a child's adjustment.
(21:47):
So a kid who might already be having emotional problems,
behavior problems, if grandma is super stressed out about your issues,
that's gonna make yours even worse. There's like a spiral
of ad negative things that can happen. Well, And there
was an article in the Chicago Tribune not too long
about the health impacts on these full time you know,
(22:11):
grandparents parenting their grandchildren and talk about how they tend
to have higher rates of depression, high rates of higher
blood pressure, and other health issues that come up simply
because they are so focused on being a caregiver, they
aren't necessarily taking as good of care of themselves as
(22:32):
they might need to. And it's also Caroline reminds me
of our episode a while back on child caregivers. I
have a feeling that that relationship can come up as well,
where you have a grandparent who might be caring for
a child, but also a child caring for that grandparents
if he or she has any sort of health problem, disability, um,
(22:52):
things like that. So there are a lot of different
dynamics within these relationships, and that issue of stigma too
that comes up is one that is particularly troubling because
you know, it's we we tend to uh, you know,
grandparents send to hold this laudable position in our society.
(23:14):
They're very revered or hopefully we would hope that they
are revered. Um. But it seems like, at least in
the US, if a child is living full time with
a grandparent, it's usually it's not frowned upon. It's not
the right word, but it's like a signal that owe something,
something is not exactly as it should be, rather than
(23:35):
I don't know, maybe providing more resources to those grandparents
and grandchildren. Well yeah, and I mean we'll get more
into this in a in a second, but I mean,
it's just not in our culture anymore. To to have
multi generational households, to have grandparents living with us. I
think that is changing a little bit because of things
like the Great Recession a couple of years ago. I
(23:56):
think more people are culturally starting to have those multigenerational
healthholds that aren't coming from a place of just like
I can't take care of my children, I need to
give them to my parents. But um, but anyway, it's
not all terrible. There is stigma, there are health issues
to worry about, a mental and emotional strain to worry about,
but it's not all terrible. There was a two thousand
(24:18):
seven study in the Journal of Social Issues that found
that greater cohesion with grandparents actually decreased depressive symptoms, particularly
among grandchildren raised in single parent families. And that's not
necessarily a cohabitating situation. That could just simply be you
are a grandchild and have grandparents, but they found that
(24:39):
it was key having those extra supports in your life. However,
the study found that that cohesive grandparent relationship reduced oppressive
symptoms more in the presence of stronger ties to parents.
So those are two keys. Basically, if you have a
strong family, you're not going to be as depressed and
(24:59):
grand parents are a key part of that. Yeah, that
makes total sense. And along those same lines, there was
a study that came out in Children and Youth Services
Review in two thousand nine which highlighted frequent contact, greater
grandparent involvement, and better parent grandparent relationships as being key
(25:21):
to kids reports on higher levels of emotional closeness to
the importance of and respect for their closest grandparents views. Yeah. So,
I mean, I would think absolutely if you are in
a family where the elderly members of that family, the
grandparents are great ants or whoever, if they're valued, then
(25:42):
that would make you value other people outside your family too.
I feel like I feel like a lot of times
elderly people in our culture are just like, yeah, get
out of the way, get out of the way, but
leave leave me some cookies. Um. There is one place though,
that stood out in contrast to a lot of what
(26:02):
we were reading about grandparent custodial situations in the US,
and that is in China. And in a past podcast
episode we did talk about how um parenting models in
China obviously different from American models of parenting, but there's
a lot of reverence for your elders in Chinese society,
(26:26):
and as part of that, if you look at China,
grandparents are far more ingrained in the family unit to
begin with, and particularly grandmothers as child caregivers. Yeah, and
this is coming from a really interesting article in The
Atlantic um that talked about how, according to the Shanghai
(26:46):
Municipal Population and Family Planning Commission, of Shanghai's young kids
are being looked after by at least one grandparent, and
half of those grandparents provide exclusive care. And this is
a number that's only increasing. And a lot of it
has to do with economics family like parents moms and
(27:07):
dad's getting jobs far away earlier retirement age. Yeah, exactly, Yeah,
a lot of it. There are several reasons why this
is happening, but like a like Kristen said, a big
part of it is the fact that it's already sort
of ingrained in their culture that grandparents are probably going
to help take care of kids. Yeah. And the story
in The Atlantic is framed around this grandmother who goes
(27:29):
she does a double double duty. Uh, in the morning,
she goes and takes care of her son and daughter
in law's kids because both parents work from seven am
to ten pm, and then after they get home, then
she heads over to her other son's house to take
care of their kids. And the grandmother talks about how
(27:54):
she sees it as her duty to support their career trajectories.
And that does stand out in the way that it's
not just supporting her son's career trajectories and also her
daughters in law's career trajectories as well, right, And so
what I thought was so interesting, especially considering how much
christ and I have talked about issues of women in
(28:15):
the workplace and lean in len in gets called out
specifically in this article by these women. The daughter in
law um of this this um grandmother who's being focused on,
talks about how like, yeah, you know, it would be
great if I could go into work and just say, look,
I want my quality family time just as much as
(28:35):
I want my quality career time. But she's like, I
can't lean in, and so thank goodness, I have my
husband's mom here to help me take care of these
kids too when I when I can't be there. And
she talked about how her own mother, who no longer
lives in China now lives in Los Angeles, has become
very Americanized and doesn't want the responsibility of taking care
(28:59):
of grandkids. Well, because there is a difference between you know,
American grandparents stereotypically being more hands off in the sense
that we don't expect them to automatically live with their
kids or in this case serve as daily daycare for
their grandchildren. Um. And that was a process that really
(29:22):
started to happen more so in the fifties when you
get more urbanization and sort of part of that whole
American dream thing of having your house, having your family,
and then seeing your kids off and they go out
and get their own houses and their own families, and
then you have this fabulous thing called retirement. And while
it might have a little bit of empty nest syndrome,
(29:43):
you're alone in Haran, then you're gonna go retire in Florida, right.
And so it is more since the post war period
is more ingrained in our culture that you have the
nuclear family, which is literally just mom, dad and the kiddos.
Grandma and grandpa are somewhere else. Um. But you know,
in China, it's interesting because as they industrialize more and more,
(30:07):
they're also seeing this rise in families splitting up. So
it's it's just interesting to look at all the factors
in play. But one of the things that they talked
about this article to speaking of leaning in and people
in business, is that of senior management positions in China
are held by women. Half of the world's female self
(30:28):
made billionaires are from China. A lot of women are
in these high power, high paying positions, whereas in America
we have, you know, we can't even get paid for
maternity leave, you know. And it's like so in terms
of of leaning in and being successful and having having
it all, quote unquote, nobody can really have it all.
(30:50):
But Chinese women certainly seem like their career trajectories are
skyrocketing in comparison, and a lot of these women do
attribute it to the presence of their you know, grandmothers,
in particular taking care of the kids, because then you
don't have to worry about the cost of childcare. You
don't worry I have to worry about finding daycare. There
(31:11):
are even grandparents schools that apparently have popped up all
over China, teaching grandparents things such as how to stand
up to your whining grandchild, and also teaching about to
understand internet technology, but there's still though this issue. I
think it has to be in China and the US,
(31:31):
like where you have this massive aging, older population, but
you also have all of these kids, and so it's
almost like both the bottom and top rungs of society
age wise, that we have this massive need in the
US for affordable childcare, quality childcare, daycare, etcetera. And in
the top we have this ever growing, you know, baby
(31:54):
boomer aging population that also as they get older, is
needing their own daycare. So that sort of ties me back,
at least to Linda freed Over at Columbia University saying, Hey,
you know what, let's apply the grandmother hypothesis to modern
day society. Let's link up these kids and these grandmothers,
(32:16):
and it's potentially a win win. Yeah. I mean, I
think if you're looking at it from that healthy perspective
of like, we're doing this willingly and we're going to
benefit each other. And I'm a giving, loving grandmother who's
gonna take care of a little timmy while moms at work,
I think that has a lot of benefits. But as
we've talked about, I think when you're sort of forced
(32:38):
together because of traumatic family situations well, and they're probably
understandably situations too, when grandmothers and grandfathers alike have raised
to their kids and they don't care to raise any
more kids. Like seeing kids on the you know, their
grandchildren on holidays is fine, but doing it every single
(33:02):
day and having to be a parent again when you're
a bit older. I know that's not an appealing proposition
for all the grandparents out there, but I think there
could still be still be more on a community community
basis of at least maybe more programs set up for
that kind of totally. I love the idea of that
program bringing grandparents into schools because you know that one
(33:26):
study that you talked about from two thousand nine showing that,
you know, kids who have close relationship with their grandparents
have greater respect for their grandparents views and opinions and existence.
And so I think and then that could be extrapolated
outward to the rest of society, you know, if we're
getting all lofty and everything, but I mean, I think
that's great to to get more interaction to not only
(33:47):
help kids develop a healthy respect for their elders, but
also to give our elders purpose. I know, like I said,
you know, my grandfather lost his purpose and so I
don't know that he would have wanted to go into
a school and help kids, but he wanted to stay
involved with everything around him, and so I don't know,
maybe maybe that could be something that could really help us. Well,
(34:10):
I'm just saying if there needs to be some kind
of public awareness campaign for this, just you, I mean,
the grandmother hypothesis is I mean, there's your marketing right there, tubers. No,
I mean, if you want a tagline, Oh, hey, kids,
you like your big old brains, thank Grandma. Done, Go
(34:30):
go play with grandma and thank her if for your
giant brains. In fact, that you don't have to be
so scared dying at thirty two because we live long
thanks to her. Okay, that might be a little bit
of an aggressive, too aggressive an approach. We'll work on
the language, will soften the message, we'll stop it. We're
a lot of you know, picture of a clay of cookies,
cookie too. But but now we want to hear from
(34:53):
listeners about their grandmothers, their grandparents. Do you or have
you lived with a g and parents and what is
the role of the grandparents or grandparents like in your family,
let us know your thoughts and hey, if there are
any grandparents listening to us, Happy grandparents Day and thanks
(35:15):
for being awesome. Write to us too because we'd like
to hear from you as well. Mom and Stuff at
how Stuff Works dot Com is our email address, and
you can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or
messages on Facebook. And we got a couple of messages
to share with you right now. So we've got a
(35:35):
couple of letters here about our Science of BFFs episode,
and this one is from Abby, who writes your podcast
on the Science of best Friendship. Came at a fitting
time since my bff Allison got married August eighteen. I'm
immensely blessed to have a lifetime best friend. We've been
palace since I came into the world twenty seven years ago,
(35:56):
several weeks after she was born. Our moms became friend
when they're pregnant with us, and our entire families have
been friends ever since. Second families to each other. Our
brothers have been close all their lives as well. We
were to school together, grew up in the same church
where college roommates, traveled to Europe together. You get the picture.
Growing up, we were regularly called by each other's names,
(36:17):
and we had more than one of those best friend
necklaces you mentioned. Allison introduced me to stuff mom never
told you, and we enjoyed connecting over the podcast. Like
your episodes on the d i Y Revival of Craft,
she has been amazingly artistic, taking after her parents and
creates for a living. Her handmaid felt a decor can
be found at House of Moss on Etsy Shameless Plug.
(36:39):
She married her love Eric this week and to our delight,
war mine now our wedding dress, and would you believe
it fit perfectly? Yes, it was meant to be. The
honor was all mine to be her maid of honor,
and the wedding was just right, so meaningful, beautiful and fun.
Her husband, Eric is a terrific man who supports her well.
(37:00):
I love them both dearly. Would you give Alison Eric
a celebratory marriage shout out on the podcast? It would
delight them and me, So here you go. Alison and Eric,
congratulations on your nuptials, and to Allison and Abbey, congratulations
as well on your lifetime of bff ship. So sweet,
(37:23):
and they shared a wedding dress you found your person.
I know that I love friends all like a deli
penguins with friends. They don't have wings. No, they can't
fly also, which is also similar to penguins. But anyway,
So I have a letter here from Lauren who said
that towards the end of our podcast about BFFs, we
(37:45):
mentioned that women should also look for female friends outside
of their age window, and she says I couldn't agree more.
One of my best female friends over sixty five, and
I don't know what I would do without her. Right
out of college, I landed a job teaching middle school
English at a person de just private school in North Carolina.
I was seven hours from my parents, three hours from
my boyfriend, no fiance, and I literally only knew one
(38:08):
person in the city where I lived. A few weeks
into my job, the school's administrative assistant asked me if
I would house it and take care of her aging
adorable husky, and thus a friendship was born. We have
shared countless bottles of wine together, helped one another with
our respective guy problems, and she even threw a bridle
shower for me. I recently relocated to Dallas, Texas, so
my fiance and I can attend law and medical school.
(38:30):
Saying goodbye to my friend was definitely full of tears.
My friend, or my North Carolina Mom as I like
to call her, still talk weekly. I strongly encourage young women,
especially those who have just relocated, to keep an open
mind when looking for new female friends. The next classy
older woman you come across might be your new best friend.
Plus they can definitely teach you how to pick an
(38:50):
excellent bottle of wine and how to arrange a rocking
bouquet of flowers. Ah So, thanks Lauren, that was a
great email. Both great emails to get so many great
emails and if you want to send us a great email,
Mom sa of it. How stuff Works dot com is
where you can do it and for links to all
of our social media blog post, videos, and podcasts, there's
(39:11):
one place to go, and it's stuff Mom Never Told
You dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from house Supports
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline. And today on the podcast, we are
celebrating Grandparents Day, which is happening on September seven, and
(00:24):
we're focusing in the first half of the podcast on
grandmothers and particularly how grandmother's, at least according to one
evolutionary theory, are to thank for kind of everything. That's right.
Grandmothers are responsible for their being people, which makes sense,
(00:45):
but they're also responsible for people living longer, being healthier,
having bigger brains, and also eating chocolate chip cookies. That's right.
My grandmother's never made me chocolate chip cocase. My grandmother
may she rest in Eas used to make me and
my siblings what she called cowboy cookies, which are basically
(01:07):
oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips in them, and I have
the recipe, but they still don't taste like the ones
that she made because they're not infused with GRANDMAA. I know,
I know, but I digress. Let's get out of out
of my nostalgic kitchen and my brain and get down
to the grandmother hypothesis because This is super fascinating and
(01:32):
we'll give I hope all listeners a newfound appreciation for
this role. That's right. And so if we're going to
look at evolutionary theories and how grandmothers are basically responsible
for all of humanity surviving and succeeding in life. When
you look at animals, female animals typically don't live past
(01:52):
their reproductive years by much. Among humans, however, we have
grandma's and they outlive their reproductive years by a cup
of decades and so um. Evolutionary theorists and researchers have
looked into this and found that grandmothers have really played
a critical role in the evolution of our human longevity. Yeah,
(02:13):
because it really doesn't make all that much sense that
women go through menopause and then hang out because you know,
grandfather's exists in quotes, because they can keep reproducing at infinitum.
Whereas you after, you would think of going to evolutionary
(02:34):
theory once women have hit their reproductive peak and then
gotten a whole series of hot flashes and all of
these to go along with that, that we would soon
thereafter die off. But no, so if you go back
to nineteen fifty seven, there's this evolutionary biologist named George
Williams who proposes something called the stopping early hypothesis, and
(02:58):
his idea was, at middle aged women men needed baby
free time in order to usher their younger children into adulthood. Right,
and so this is a theory that's definitely focusing on
the children, not the grandchildren in particular. And then Williams
in the nineteen eighties is followed by American anthropologist Kristen Hawks,
(03:19):
who had a slightly different explanation for why women stick
around after menopause. She was actually inspired by the Hasda
culture of Tanzania. She noticed that older women spent their
days collecting tubers and other food for their grandkids. But
in doing so, they were working harder and longer than
(03:39):
the younger women, and they collected way more food than necessary.
So what is the deal? Why were they doing this?
So she took her notes and ended up studying other
modern hunter gatherer societies in places like Tanzania, Venezuela, and
eastern Paraguay. And she measured the muscle strength of men
and women in these communities and Wade will basically the
(04:02):
loads of food and resources that they were carrying. Found
out that women in their sixties were just as strong
as women in their twenties. She also noted, which is
very key, that the children with grandmothers or great aunts
had faster growth rates than their counterparts the kids who didn't.
And so the theory shifts from hey, women stick around
(04:24):
to usher their children into adulthood to oh, look at this,
these these older ladies are sticking around to help their
grandchildren succeed. They're super strong, and they are carrying just
armloads of tubers, their bench pressing tubers over their heads.
Giant tuba. Yes, and so. Based off these observations in
(04:45):
these modern hunter gatherer societies, Hawks develops what is known
as the grandmother hypothesis, which maintains that menopause exists in
order to divert older women's energy and resources into caring
for not only her kids, but also her grandkids, thereby
(05:06):
providing her descendants with a survival advantage. Right, and so,
in looking at these cultures and in looking way way
back in ancient societies, etcetera, etcetera, grandmothers by helping out
around the house or hut, we're basically freeing up their
daughters to have more children quickly as opposed to if
(05:26):
you look at chimpanzees who weighed about five years to
have more offspring, and so that means that you have
the most evolutionarily fit grandmothers having the most grandchildren and
therefore passing on the longevity jeans. Evolution dropped the mic.
And on top of passing on those longevity jeans and
of course gathering all those two hawks has written that
(05:51):
grandmother and gave us quote a whole array of social
capacities that are the foundation for the evolution of other
distinct human traits, including pair bonding, bigger brains, learning new skills,
and our tendency for cooperation. Well, thank you, grandmother, thank
you so much. That's right. I mean, so basically, if
(06:13):
you look back at like our ape ancestors, you know
there was a point when certain apes with larger brains
started going off and getting tools and using tools and
going farther for resources and food, and so those big
brained grandma's had to stick around and help their big
brained grand grand apes. I guess grand grow up happy
(06:33):
and healthy and eating all those tubers. Now, not everybody
is on board with the grandmother hypothesis, because that would
mean that science is too easy. There's been plenty of
people who have said, I don't know, because with the
grandmother hypothesis, you're discounting the impact in these hunter gatherer
societies of men going out and hunting and bringing back
(06:57):
this important energy low to the families as well. So
there was a paper particularly in two thousand ten that
came out called Grandmothering and Natural Selection, which basically said
that the grandmother hypothesis is too weak of a force
to really explain longevity. But then Hawks went back to
(07:22):
the drawing board and created a mathematical model to test
the hypothesis, right, And she used a hypothetical primate like
population um showing the advantages of quote, even a little
bit of grandmother, even just half of a cowboy cookie
my case. Yeah, so even just a quarter a crumb
(07:45):
of that cookie increased longevity into from ape like longevity
into the human range of about how long we live now,
And so that ended up doubling in this model the
human life span. Oh and there's a fascinating side note
to this theory because it also applies to whales, which
(08:08):
are another exception in terms of species that live past menopause.
And this was something uncovered by evolutionary biologists at the
University of Cambridge Rufus Johnson, who said they're the only
other mammal apart from us, where females have a comparable
post reproductive lifespan. What up whales? That's right? Uh? And
(08:30):
speaking of mathematical models, Johnson and Dr Michael Kent at
the University of exit A developed a model to study
the kinship dynamics that exist in Orca's short finned pilot
whales and humans. We don't have fins, but we we
fit into the same model. And these guys found that
as the post menopausal females in all of these species aged,
(08:54):
they actually ended up developing closer ties to infants. And
so they wrote, our analysis can help explain why I've
all long lived social mammals. It is specifically among great
apes and toothed whales. And I guess people too that
menopause and post reproductive helping have evolved whales. They're just
like us who knew so. While the grandmother hypothesis is
(09:19):
certainly intriguing evolutionary food for thought, is there a modern
day application to it? Gerontologists Linda Freed, who is the
Dean of Columbia University School of Public Health told the
New Republic that, eah, there could be a modern day
application to this, because, as she said, older adults constitute
(09:41):
the only increasing natural resource in the entire world. So
what if we symbolically, metaphoric, metaphorically figuratively sent our grandmothers
out collecting tubers in our modern in our modern society. Yea,
so to speak, Well, she looked at it in terms
of school free. It actually started a program that put
(10:03):
retirees in at risk public schools in nineteen cities and
found that kids who had retirees in their classrooms actually
did a lot better. And maybe this is because the
retirees are helping teachers or they're keeping kids in line.
But significantly also for the elderly participants in this program,
(10:24):
they actually did a lot better themselves too. They performed
better on health tests, happiness tests, probably because they felt useful.
I know that my dad's dad, after he retired, did
not do so well anymore. He got actually really depressed
because he had been the family man, the provider, the
working man, you know, had a great career, and once
(10:46):
he retired he just kind of felt shoved to the side. Sure, well,
and if we look more at the developing world, there
have been studies finding that it's the grandmother's in particular
who tend to benefit their families financially. So Free To
offered the example of when older black people in South
(11:08):
Africa first began receiving pensions from the post apartheid government,
the grandchildren who were living with grandmothers and particularly their granddaughters,
grew taller and gained more weight, which essentially was a
sign that they were getting healthier because the grandmothers were
(11:28):
allocating more of that pension back into their households. Right.
But interestingly, when it was the grandfathers who received the pensions,
the grandkids did not grow at all. And I thought
this whole concept sounded familiar in terms of like micro
loan programs in Africa and other regions of the world,
where it shows that when women received these loans, they
(11:53):
are the money is spent kind of more wisely. Yeah. Well,
and this also hearkens back to Kristen hawks initial research
in the eighties looking at, you know, the Hausa culture
of Tanzania and other places where those grandmothers who were
living you know with and helping out with their grandchildren,
(12:14):
the grandkids had those faster growth rates. So there is
something powerful about grandmother's and this is of course nothing
against grandfather's, but it is something incredible about grandmother's and
so we should definitely take a look speaking of grandpa's
as well, we should take a look at what being
(12:34):
a grandmother or grandfather entails today in terms of numbers
and are they happy. We have to find this out,
and we'll talk about it when we get right back
from a quick break. So when it comes to being
a grandmother grandfather in the US in particular today, because
(12:58):
that's where a lot of these statistics are going to
come from, it's becoming more and more common for that
to involve caring for your grandchildren and not just having
the grandkids dropped off for a few weeks during the summer,
perhaps in fact, the grandkids living with you full time.
(13:19):
Because in fact, as of Sensus stated from two thousand eleven,
seven million grandparents in the US had grandchildren under eighteen
living with them, and nearly half of those grandkids were
under the age of six, which that is talking about
a full time childcare load. Right. But if you look
(13:39):
at those seven million grandparents who have grandkids under eighteen
living with them, two point seven million were responsible for
the basic needs of one or more grandkids under eighteen,
and so that means that they are custodial grandparents. They're
raising the grandkids. And in terms of the grandmother grandfather
split in that you do tend to have more grandmother
(14:00):
is possibly because, as we know, men do tend to
die at earlier ages than women. But one point seven
million of that two point seven million we just mentioned
were grandmothers and one million were grandfathers, right, And when
you put these numbers in context, what they're telling us
is that more grandparents are raising their grandkids in the
(14:22):
United States. In fact, over the past forty years, the
share of US children living in a grandparents household has
more than doubled, from three percent in nineteen seventy to
seven percent in And if you look at the more
recent rise of grandkids living with grandparents, a lot of
people pinpoint it as a side effect of the Great Recession,
(14:44):
because a lot of times when you have that kind
of custodial situation, it's due to the fact that the
child's parents can't afford to take care of them in
their house, or they might be dealing with situations such
as UH, drug addictions, or they might be incarcerated. They
might also be deployed uh in a military capacity. There
(15:08):
are all sorts of reasons for that to happen, but UH,
financial reasons often come up again and again. Yeah, and
if you look at those reasons for these cohabitating living
situations specifically, there is a September national survey by the
nonprofit Generations United that looked at living situations that involved
(15:28):
the parents being there too, so it's a multigenerational household
versus when the grandparents are the custodians of the children.
And they found that the reasons for a multigenerational living
situation when the parents are there too, uh, that typically
involves unemployment or unemployment, healthcare costs, and home foreclosure. So
you're moving in together to save resources. But when the
(15:50):
grandparents are the sole caregivers for the grandkids, that tends to,
according to the survey, come about because of the grandchild
fields parents, substance abuse, but also things like incarceration, death,
mental illness, or child neglect. These kids are also more
likely to have a disability, be teenagers, and have family
(16:10):
income below the poverty line, so a lot of potential
family hardships that could lead to maybe a parent not
being able to appropriately care for a child and having
to get the grandparents help well. And to add to that,
because a lot of times when grandparents are, you know,
the soul custodians of their grandchildren, it's due to not
(16:33):
so favorable circumstances. And adding to that is the fact
that the media and family income in families where the
grandparent is responsible for children under eighteen when the parents
are not present, when you're not in that multigenerational household
set up, the meeting income is only thirty three thousand
and six D twenty seven, So there's usually a big
(16:54):
financial strain within the household as well. And there's been
a lot of research to on the ethnic and community
breakdowns of who is likelier to have grandchildren living with grandparents,
and particularly grandmothers, because again, grandkids are likelier to live
with grandmothers um and there was a research project looking
(17:19):
at stats in the US which found that black and
Hispanic grandmothers are more likely than white grandmothers to live
with grandchildren, and black grandmothers are more likely than Hispanic
grandmothers to be the primary caregivers. So there's a lot
of nuance though, even in just that sentence, because grandmother's
(17:40):
living with grandchildren could denote all sorts of things like
a grandmother not able to fully care for herself living
with her children, or maybe it's a situation where there
is someone who's incarcerated or dealing with the substance abuse problem,
and so that grandmother has sole custody. Right. And as
far as the effect on kids and grandparents in these
(18:02):
custodial grandparents situations, this is coming from the National Institute
of Mental Health. They found that custodial grandchildren have higher
levels of emotional and behavioral problems than children in the
overall US population. But I mean, I would think that,
you know, we just talked about a lot of the
scary reasons that a grandchild could live with a grandparent,
and so you know, it's I don't know the correlation
(18:25):
and causation relationship here exactly, but it seems like if
you've had something terrible happened in your family that has
led you to live with a grandparents instead of just like, oh,
I want in state tuition a college, so you know,
like they want cowboy cookies every day, right, So it
seems like these kids might have emotional turmoil in their
lives regardless, just because of the difficult circumstances that led
(18:48):
to the living situation. Yeah, they probably didn't go there
by choice. And Gregory C. Smith from Kent State University
is someone who's looked into this, and he found that
one comes to the grandmother grandchild relationship, boys do tend
to present many more difficulties than girls, and he thinks
(19:10):
that it might be because boys are likelier to have
externalizing behavior problems, So you know, it's it's sort of
self explanatory. Their emotional and behavioral difficulties are expressed outwardly
in the form of acting up or talking back or
don't mean nice to your grandma exactly, and so she'll
probably withhold the cookies. Who Whereas with girls, Smith says
(19:33):
that they're likelier to have internalizing problems where they channel
those difficulties into anxiety, fear, depression. So it's the other
side of the same coin, really. And also when it
comes to younger children between ages two and six, Laura Pittman,
(19:55):
whose researcher at Northern Illinois University found that they did
lag behind their peers in developing academic skills, right, But
they found it for preschoolers in particular, having a caring
adult who attends to their needs can help avert problem
behaviors in addition to anxiety and depression. And that makes sense, yeah,
And I mean we also have to give credit to
(20:18):
these custodial grandparents too, who according to that research project
I mentioned a minute ago, which found that in particular,
African American grandparents are likelier to impart religious and spiritual
beliefs and also discuss what they term uncomfortable issues such
(20:38):
as drugs, peer pressure, sex with their grandchildren in other words,
to help them navigate through daily challenges. And they were
also likelier to report that they spend money on their
grandchildren to help with everyday living expenses. So there are
in other words, they're doing everything that they can to
(21:00):
these kids, right, And that can lead to a lot
of strain on these custodial grandparents. I mean, there's so
many good things about having a close relationship with your
grandparents as a grandchild, but um, there's a lot of
strain that can come out of that as well. Uh Smith.
The researcher looked at things like strained relationships with birth parents,
social stigma, financial pressure, and their own increasing age related
(21:24):
health concerns. So I mean, they don't stop having to
worry about their own lives just because they're caring for
these grandkids. But often I think Smith was talking about
how easy it is to sort of overlook your own
problems when you have to when you have a kid
to take care of. And Smith also talked about studies
showing that a caregiver, in this case of grandparent and
even moderate distress can have an impact on a child's adjustment.
(21:47):
So a kid who might already be having emotional problems,
behavior problems, if grandma is super stressed out about your issues,
that's gonna make yours even worse. There's like a spiral
of ad negative things that can happen. Well, And there
was an article in the Chicago Tribune not too long
about the health impacts on these full time you know,
(22:11):
grandparents parenting their grandchildren and talk about how they tend
to have higher rates of depression, high rates of higher
blood pressure, and other health issues that come up simply
because they are so focused on being a caregiver, they
aren't necessarily taking as good of care of themselves as
(22:32):
they might need to. And it's also Caroline reminds me
of our episode a while back on child caregivers. I
have a feeling that that relationship can come up as well,
where you have a grandparent who might be caring for
a child, but also a child caring for that grandparents
if he or she has any sort of health problem, disability, um,
(22:52):
things like that. So there are a lot of different
dynamics within these relationships, and that issue of stigma too
that comes up is one that is particularly troubling because
you know, it's we we tend to uh, you know,
grandparents send to hold this laudable position in our society.
(23:14):
They're very revered or hopefully we would hope that they
are revered. Um. But it seems like, at least in
the US, if a child is living full time with
a grandparent, it's usually it's not frowned upon. It's not
the right word, but it's like a signal that owe something,
something is not exactly as it should be, rather than
(23:35):
I don't know, maybe providing more resources to those grandparents
and grandchildren. Well yeah, and I mean we'll get more
into this in a in a second, but I mean,
it's just not in our culture anymore. To to have
multi generational households, to have grandparents living with us. I
think that is changing a little bit because of things
like the Great Recession a couple of years ago. I
(23:56):
think more people are culturally starting to have those multigenerational
healthholds that aren't coming from a place of just like
I can't take care of my children, I need to
give them to my parents. But um, but anyway, it's
not all terrible. There is stigma, there are health issues
to worry about, a mental and emotional strain to worry about,
but it's not all terrible. There was a two thousand
(24:18):
seven study in the Journal of Social Issues that found
that greater cohesion with grandparents actually decreased depressive symptoms, particularly
among grandchildren raised in single parent families. And that's not
necessarily a cohabitating situation. That could just simply be you
are a grandchild and have grandparents, but they found that
(24:39):
it was key having those extra supports in your life. However,
the study found that that cohesive grandparent relationship reduced oppressive
symptoms more in the presence of stronger ties to parents.
So those are two keys. Basically, if you have a
strong family, you're not going to be as depressed and
(24:59):
grand parents are a key part of that. Yeah, that
makes total sense. And along those same lines, there was
a study that came out in Children and Youth Services
Review in two thousand nine which highlighted frequent contact, greater
grandparent involvement, and better parent grandparent relationships as being key
(25:21):
to kids reports on higher levels of emotional closeness to
the importance of and respect for their closest grandparents views. Yeah. So,
I mean, I would think absolutely if you are in
a family where the elderly members of that family, the
grandparents are great ants or whoever, if they're valued, then
(25:42):
that would make you value other people outside your family too.
I feel like I feel like a lot of times
elderly people in our culture are just like, yeah, get
out of the way, get out of the way, but
leave leave me some cookies. Um. There is one place though,
that stood out in contrast to a lot of what
(26:02):
we were reading about grandparent custodial situations in the US,
and that is in China. And in a past podcast
episode we did talk about how um parenting models in
China obviously different from American models of parenting, but there's
a lot of reverence for your elders in Chinese society,
(26:26):
and as part of that, if you look at China,
grandparents are far more ingrained in the family unit to
begin with, and particularly grandmothers as child caregivers. Yeah, and
this is coming from a really interesting article in The
Atlantic um that talked about how, according to the Shanghai
(26:46):
Municipal Population and Family Planning Commission, of Shanghai's young kids
are being looked after by at least one grandparent, and
half of those grandparents provide exclusive care. And this is
a number that's only increasing. And a lot of it
has to do with economics family like parents moms and
(27:07):
dad's getting jobs far away earlier retirement age. Yeah, exactly, Yeah,
a lot of it. There are several reasons why this
is happening, but like a like Kristen said, a big
part of it is the fact that it's already sort
of ingrained in their culture that grandparents are probably going
to help take care of kids. Yeah. And the story
in The Atlantic is framed around this grandmother who goes
(27:29):
she does a double double duty. Uh, in the morning,
she goes and takes care of her son and daughter
in law's kids because both parents work from seven am
to ten pm, and then after they get home, then
she heads over to her other son's house to take
care of their kids. And the grandmother talks about how
(27:54):
she sees it as her duty to support their career trajectories.
And that does stand out in the way that it's
not just supporting her son's career trajectories and also her
daughters in law's career trajectories as well, right, And so
what I thought was so interesting, especially considering how much
christ and I have talked about issues of women in
(28:15):
the workplace and lean in len in gets called out
specifically in this article by these women. The daughter in
law um of this this um grandmother who's being focused on,
talks about how like, yeah, you know, it would be
great if I could go into work and just say, look,
I want my quality family time just as much as
(28:35):
I want my quality career time. But she's like, I
can't lean in, and so thank goodness, I have my
husband's mom here to help me take care of these
kids too when I when I can't be there. And
she talked about how her own mother, who no longer
lives in China now lives in Los Angeles, has become
very Americanized and doesn't want the responsibility of taking care
(28:59):
of grandkids. Well, because there is a difference between you know,
American grandparents stereotypically being more hands off in the sense
that we don't expect them to automatically live with their
kids or in this case serve as daily daycare for
their grandchildren. Um. And that was a process that really
(29:22):
started to happen more so in the fifties when you
get more urbanization and sort of part of that whole
American dream thing of having your house, having your family,
and then seeing your kids off and they go out
and get their own houses and their own families, and
then you have this fabulous thing called retirement. And while
it might have a little bit of empty nest syndrome,
(29:43):
you're alone in Haran, then you're gonna go retire in Florida, right.
And so it is more since the post war period
is more ingrained in our culture that you have the
nuclear family, which is literally just mom, dad and the kiddos.
Grandma and grandpa are somewhere else. Um. But you know,
in China, it's interesting because as they industrialize more and more,
(30:07):
they're also seeing this rise in families splitting up. So
it's it's just interesting to look at all the factors
in play. But one of the things that they talked
about this article to speaking of leaning in and people
in business, is that of senior management positions in China
are held by women. Half of the world's female self
(30:28):
made billionaires are from China. A lot of women are
in these high power, high paying positions, whereas in America
we have, you know, we can't even get paid for
maternity leave, you know. And it's like so in terms
of of leaning in and being successful and having having
it all, quote unquote, nobody can really have it all.
(30:50):
But Chinese women certainly seem like their career trajectories are
skyrocketing in comparison, and a lot of these women do
attribute it to the presence of their you know, grandmothers,
in particular taking care of the kids, because then you
don't have to worry about the cost of childcare. You
don't worry I have to worry about finding daycare. There
(31:11):
are even grandparents schools that apparently have popped up all
over China, teaching grandparents things such as how to stand
up to your whining grandchild, and also teaching about to
understand internet technology, but there's still though this issue. I
think it has to be in China and the US,
(31:31):
like where you have this massive aging, older population, but
you also have all of these kids, and so it's
almost like both the bottom and top rungs of society
age wise, that we have this massive need in the
US for affordable childcare, quality childcare, daycare, etcetera. And in
the top we have this ever growing, you know, baby
(31:54):
boomer aging population that also as they get older, is
needing their own daycare. So that sort of ties me back,
at least to Linda freed Over at Columbia University saying, Hey,
you know what, let's apply the grandmother hypothesis to modern
day society. Let's link up these kids and these grandmothers,
(32:16):
and it's potentially a win win. Yeah. I mean, I
think if you're looking at it from that healthy perspective
of like, we're doing this willingly and we're going to
benefit each other. And I'm a giving, loving grandmother who's
gonna take care of a little timmy while moms at work,
I think that has a lot of benefits. But as
we've talked about, I think when you're sort of forced
(32:38):
together because of traumatic family situations well, and they're probably
understandably situations too, when grandmothers and grandfathers alike have raised
to their kids and they don't care to raise any
more kids. Like seeing kids on the you know, their
grandchildren on holidays is fine, but doing it every single
(33:02):
day and having to be a parent again when you're
a bit older. I know that's not an appealing proposition
for all the grandparents out there, but I think there
could still be still be more on a community community
basis of at least maybe more programs set up for
that kind of totally. I love the idea of that
program bringing grandparents into schools because you know that one
(33:26):
study that you talked about from two thousand nine showing that,
you know, kids who have close relationship with their grandparents
have greater respect for their grandparents views and opinions and existence.
And so I think and then that could be extrapolated
outward to the rest of society, you know, if we're
getting all lofty and everything, but I mean, I think
that's great to to get more interaction to not only
(33:47):
help kids develop a healthy respect for their elders, but
also to give our elders purpose. I know, like I said,
you know, my grandfather lost his purpose and so I
don't know that he would have wanted to go into
a school and help kids, but he wanted to stay
involved with everything around him, and so I don't know,
maybe maybe that could be something that could really help us. Well,
(34:10):
I'm just saying if there needs to be some kind
of public awareness campaign for this, just you, I mean,
the grandmother hypothesis is I mean, there's your marketing right there, tubers. No,
I mean, if you want a tagline, Oh, hey, kids,
you like your big old brains, thank Grandma. Done, Go
(34:30):
go play with grandma and thank her if for your
giant brains. In fact, that you don't have to be
so scared dying at thirty two because we live long
thanks to her. Okay, that might be a little bit
of an aggressive, too aggressive an approach. We'll work on
the language, will soften the message, we'll stop it. We're
a lot of you know, picture of a clay of cookies,
cookie too. But but now we want to hear from
(34:53):
listeners about their grandmothers, their grandparents. Do you or have
you lived with a g and parents and what is
the role of the grandparents or grandparents like in your family,
let us know your thoughts and hey, if there are
any grandparents listening to us, Happy grandparents Day and thanks
(35:15):
for being awesome. Write to us too because we'd like
to hear from you as well. Mom and Stuff at
how Stuff Works dot Com is our email address, and
you can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or
messages on Facebook. And we got a couple of messages
to share with you right now. So we've got a
(35:35):
couple of letters here about our Science of BFFs episode,
and this one is from Abby, who writes your podcast
on the Science of best Friendship. Came at a fitting
time since my bff Allison got married August eighteen. I'm
immensely blessed to have a lifetime best friend. We've been
palace since I came into the world twenty seven years ago,
(35:56):
several weeks after she was born. Our moms became friend
when they're pregnant with us, and our entire families have
been friends ever since. Second families to each other. Our
brothers have been close all their lives as well. We
were to school together, grew up in the same church
where college roommates, traveled to Europe together. You get the picture.
Growing up, we were regularly called by each other's names,
(36:17):
and we had more than one of those best friend
necklaces you mentioned. Allison introduced me to stuff mom never
told you, and we enjoyed connecting over the podcast. Like
your episodes on the d i Y Revival of Craft,
she has been amazingly artistic, taking after her parents and
creates for a living. Her handmaid felt a decor can
be found at House of Moss on Etsy Shameless Plug.
(36:39):
She married her love Eric this week and to our delight,
war mine now our wedding dress, and would you believe
it fit perfectly? Yes, it was meant to be. The
honor was all mine to be her maid of honor,
and the wedding was just right, so meaningful, beautiful and fun.
Her husband, Eric is a terrific man who supports her well.
(37:00):
I love them both dearly. Would you give Alison Eric
a celebratory marriage shout out on the podcast? It would
delight them and me, So here you go. Alison and Eric,
congratulations on your nuptials, and to Allison and Abbey, congratulations
as well on your lifetime of bff ship. So sweet,
(37:23):
and they shared a wedding dress you found your person.
I know that I love friends all like a deli
penguins with friends. They don't have wings. No, they can't
fly also, which is also similar to penguins. But anyway,
So I have a letter here from Lauren who said
that towards the end of our podcast about BFFs, we
(37:45):
mentioned that women should also look for female friends outside
of their age window, and she says I couldn't agree more.
One of my best female friends over sixty five, and
I don't know what I would do without her. Right
out of college, I landed a job teaching middle school
English at a person de just private school in North Carolina.
I was seven hours from my parents, three hours from
my boyfriend, no fiance, and I literally only knew one
(38:08):
person in the city where I lived. A few weeks
into my job, the school's administrative assistant asked me if
I would house it and take care of her aging
adorable husky, and thus a friendship was born. We have
shared countless bottles of wine together, helped one another with
our respective guy problems, and she even threw a bridle
shower for me. I recently relocated to Dallas, Texas, so
my fiance and I can attend law and medical school.
(38:30):
Saying goodbye to my friend was definitely full of tears.
My friend, or my North Carolina Mom as I like
to call her, still talk weekly. I strongly encourage young women,
especially those who have just relocated, to keep an open
mind when looking for new female friends. The next classy
older woman you come across might be your new best friend.
Plus they can definitely teach you how to pick an
(38:50):
excellent bottle of wine and how to arrange a rocking
bouquet of flowers. Ah So, thanks Lauren, that was a
great email. Both great emails to get so many great
emails and if you want to send us a great email,
Mom sa of it. How stuff Works dot com is
where you can do it and for links to all
of our social media blog post, videos, and podcasts, there's
(39:11):
one place to go, and it's stuff Mom Never Told
You dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com
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