I’m delighted to start my posts on PrawfsBlawg in June because June is THE most popular month for weddings. Almost 11% of the 2.4 million weddings each year occur in June, while just under 5% occur in January (my reliable source for these statistics is the National Mail Order Association, which has lots to gain by being right on this). These statistics will lead me into lots of different directions in my posts this month, including a discussion of my upcoming co-authored book, Red Families v. Blue Families.
Now, though, I’m going to start with some advice to anyone considering becoming a parent, including brides and grooms: live near the mother of the woman — if you want to give your children their highest possibilities of survival — and don’t live near the mother of the man (if there is a man in the picture). If you’re two women, then you have a wonderful choice of where to live.
This advice is based on Sarah Blaffer Hrdy’s just-published, Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding. For anyone skeptical of the insights of evolutionary biology, as well as for anyone enamored of those insights (that covers, I hope, almost everyone), the book will be challenging. She carefully and thoughtfully explores the origins of altruism and cooperation in humans, beginning with the all-important question of how humans differ from other animals. In response to that question, she summarizes the evidence showing that we don’t differ based on our ability to use tools, or our“basic cognitive machinery.” Instead, she argues that we’re different because of our ability to cooperate, the size of our brains, and our ability to use language. Contrary to the prevailing theories of many evolutionary biologists who explain that humans evolved their extreme sociality and cooperative behavior in order to compete more effectively, she believes that it is our attributes as cooperative breeders that lead to our ability to trust and empathize with others.
The study of cooperative breeding is about half a century old in evolutionary biology, and recent research has shown the critical role that grandmothers play in helping their grandchildren survive. My specific advice to people considering parenthood is based on a series of studies that Hrdy explores, which suggest that humans have depended on grandmothers (older women) to help nurture children. She explains: “the presence of a maternal grandmother is more likely to be correlated with the enhanced well-being of grandchildren, whereas the presence of the father’s mother is more likely to be correlated with increased maternal fecundity, earlier reproduction, and shorter intervals between birth, ” at least “in traditional societies” (p. 261). This research also helps explain the most surprising finding from a study of domestic violence in Afghanistan that I participated in last year: we found that the husband’s mother was frequently a perpetrator.
So, go live on your own or, if you’re going to have kids, near the mother’s mother. By the way, I have two children and live nowhere near my mother. Go figure.
Finally, a moment of silence for Dr. George Tiller, the Kansas physician who performed late-term abortions. He was shot Sunday as he served as an usher at his church. I will discuss the abortion issue in a later post.
Posted by Naomi Cahn on June 1, 2009 at 01:43 PM
Comments
FWIW, one of the classic social conflicts in Japanese society, which is quite far removed from Afghanistan, is between new brides and their mothers-in-law. It is a mainstay of Japanese fiction and a frequently cited cause of divorce there.
Posted by: ohwilleke | Jun 5, 2009 1:55:29 AM