Multi-Parental Cooperative Childcare, Human Origins, and Egalitarianism
Discussion
Camilla Power:
"Hrdy explores how multi-parental care shaped the evolution of our species’ unique psychological nature. While cooperative childcare may start with the mother-daughter relationship, bonding with grandchildren would quickly lead to the involvement of aunts, sisters, older daughters and other trusted relatives. From the moment when mothers allow others to hold their babies, says Hrdy, selection pressures for new kinds of mind-reading are established. These give rise to an array of novel responses – mutual gazing, babbling, kissfeeding and so forth – to enable this variegated triad of mum, baby and new helper to consolidate bonds while monitoring one another’s intentions. Within a few short hours after birth, a baby in an African hunter-gatherer camp will have been introduced to and held by numerous relatives and friends, of both sexes.
Childhood itself is a unique aspect of human life history which coevolved along with those hard-working grandmothers. After weaning and before eruption of adult teeth, children need help with finding food they can process, and that is where grandma steps in. In this role, mother’s mother would have had a big impact on a child’s survival, while the mother could begin the cycle of having her next baby. This has resulted in the special characteristic of ‘stacked’ families among humans, where – unlike other great apes – a mum has several dependent offspring at once."