21 ms·

The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

247 points by stareatgoats 3y ago

mandmandam 3y ago
As much as I welcome more actual science on this topic, I don't think the words 'new key' are at all justified here (and they aren't used in tfa). New to some WEIRD nuclear families maybe, but not actually new or surprising.
- myspy 3y ago
  What‘s a weird nuclear family? That’s the mode of operation. Without grand parents it gets harder. Single parents have it the hardest. Relationships to neighbors are not that deep.
  - dave4420 3y ago
    WEIRD = Western Educated Industrialised Rich Democratic
    - lettergram 3y ago
      Imo it’s a derogatory term people in … alternative circles, like to use.
      - ithkuil 3y ago
        Is "alternative circles" also a derogatory term? I
      - brvsft 3y ago
        I'm guessing the term is supposed to point out the idea that what we think of as normal is actually not.
        lettergram 3y ago
        Except it is normal to have a nuclear family? https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/ageing/household_size_and_composition_around_the_world_2017_data_booklet.pdf https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publicatio... It’s actually more common in the rest of the world than Europe and the US. It’s kind of crazy to say it’s WEIRD to expect nuclear families, when it’s the west that is the least likely (still the majority have nuclear families).
      - dave4420 3y ago
        It was invented by Western psychologists upon discovering that the results of their experiments on Western psychology students did not, after all, generalise to results that were applicable to all humans. If you’re hanging round in circles that use it as a derogatory term, you’re hanging round in the wrong circles.
- stareatgoats 3y ago
  The title had to be shortened - 'new' was the best I could think of. But it can be justified I think, both in relation to the gist of the article and the original title. If this was well established knowledge that that is new to me at least, albeit not really surprising, admittedly. (tfa? I couldn't get a hit on that acronym anywhere)
  - closewith 3y ago
    TFA is "the fucking article".
  - csa 3y ago
    > (tfa? I couldn't get a hit on that acronym anywhere) “the fucking article” I recommend using urban dictionary if a generic search doesn’t yield a result that makes any sense.
    - stareatgoats 3y ago
      ah, thanks. Did try UD but it didn't show up for me on the first nor second page. edit: seems I missed the top entry!
      - csa 3y ago
        Interesting. First result for me. I wonder if they adjust search results by geo.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - MandieD 3y ago
    The (Fine|Friendly|F-ing) Article
RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
> When considering the implications for Western countries, the authors highlight that the provision of affordable high-quality childcare support, which goes beyond effective supervision, should be prioritized. > Ratios of caregivers to children were greater than five-to-one in the observed hunter-gatherer groups, whereas in UK nurseries each adult is responsible for numerous children. There is now way you can pay for these kind of ratios. These ratios can only happen due to a social structure that involves large extended families and a social structure that has a large proportion of the population (pretty much all the females) that spend all their time with each other and the children. However, that would be a huge step backwards from the progress we have made in women’s rights and equality.
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  Why does it have to be all women?
  - EGreg 3y ago
    Exactly the right question. People make all kinds of assumptions and thanks to the corporate world, both sexes now slave away for the market: https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=286 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=286 I wrote that in 2017 and it's only gotten worse since then
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      People could accept lower living standards and opt for single income families. However, people like to compete, for purposes of fulfilling their own ego and attracting a mate. That is why higher income individuals attract other higher income individuals. Corporations did not make people competitive. People want financial freedom, people want to buy goods and services, and people want to attract a partner per their liking.
      - EGreg 3y ago
        Corporations, just like governments, engage in pervasive propaganda, from impressionable school years all the way to adulthood. Edward Burnays said propaganda got a bad name after WW1, so they renamed it to "PR". It's how corporations got women to smoke, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torches_of_Freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torches_of_Freedom How they control the crowd, featuring Edward Burnays and his uncle Freud (whose theories became famous ironically because of his nephew): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04 How the corporate world market to kids: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/ They marketed it to Black youth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BjKyVzRr_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BjKyVzRr_U They marketed it to teen girls: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/03/30/social-media-girls-teens-depression-tiktok/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/03/30/social-m... Sometimes the mask comes off and they do it too openly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNzXze5Yza8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNzXze5Yza8 The for-profit model of news corporations and social networks has led more and more adults to become perpetually angry and tribal politically: https://www.laweekly.com/restoring-healthy-communities/ https://www.laweekly.com/restoring-healthy-communities/ There is even a term for what they resort to in order to please shareholders: surveillance capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism I was at the event in NYC when Sheryl Sandberg unveiled her book, "Lean In": https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Women-Work-Will-Lead/dp/0385349947 https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Women-Work-Will-Lead/dp/03853499... Make no mistake. YCombinator and shareholder capitalism leads to this inevitably. Corporations have to please shareholders forever. And there is more and more push for inclusivity and part of that means adapting people from traditional roles (e.g. women homemakers) into types of work that benefit the market. As both sexes flooded the labor pool, wages got depressed, and marriage declined. People are distracted into being e.g. gender warriors (Red Pill vs Feminism) rather than realizing they are all being exploited by a for-profit capitalist system that gradually relegates them to gig-economy workers and depresses their wages as they get replaced by AI. It's like a slowly-boiled frog. Anyone can opt out if they want. Opt out of the over-diagnosis of ADHD for their kids in public schools, by spending more time with them. Opt out of single parenthood and nuclear families, creating something far more expansive and with the benefits of traditional societies. Health benefits abound. Kids aren't overmedicated by amphetamines. Teens aren't depressed due to tiktok or angry due to drill music. Middle aged women aren't on antideprssants. Men aren't on opiates. Elderly parents aren't in nursing homes being drugged up. I'm not saying it's a utopia but the capitalist system has gone in a very bad direction, arguably worse than USSR where people drank vodka to cope. Look at any traditional society even within the US, such as the Amish, or religious orthodox Jews, or Christians in small-town America who still get together for Church etc. You don't have to be religious to make it work. But it takes a village to raise a child, and today's children are raised by government schools and indoctrinated to be corporate drones, for a job market that will be gone by the time they graduate. I recommend phasing in a UBI, at least, to help save the increasingly under-employed (i.e. making too few $s) people and families from falling through the cracks even further. The best kind of UBI can be done on a community level, for newlyweds and new parents etc.
hasoleju 3y ago
> childcare needs to give parents an actual break. In my experience caring for your small children is really demanding work. On the one hand you need to be focused on the situation in order to protect the children and on the other hand there is not much going on for entertaining yourself. Creative or focused deep work where you get a positive feeling of accomplishment also counts as a break from childcare for me. So a break does not necessarily mean not working. But I believe there are a lot of demanding jobs that are not a break from childcare. The other aspect I can relate to is the fact that in hunter-gatherer communities many different caregivers support each other. Every summer we travel in the mountains with 3-4 other families and their kids. Last year there where 12 kids under the age of 8. Sounds very stressful but actually it was really smooth. Having multiple parents available all the time allowed everyone to take a real break once in a while. And also the children enjoyed having multiple different adults they could interact with apart from their parents. So I really think this concept works, but only if you all live under the same roof. Which in practice is only possible during holidays.
- manmal 3y ago
  In our Montessori school, parents do pick up other kids occasionally, and the kids would just stay with the family for the afternoon. Ideally, kids take turns so sometimes parents get an afternoon off. Another thing that sometimes works (lots of preconditions) - living in walking distance of grandparents or siblings, and let the kids visit family frequently.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    > Another thing that sometimes works (lots of preconditions) - living in walking distance of grandparents or siblings, and let the kids visit family frequently. If you are not sufficiently rich such that you can afford personal services such as live in nannies and flights to visit family and whatnot, I find that living walking distance to close family is one of the biggest quality of life upgrades one could make (obviously assuming you get along with them). The redundancies it provides makes for much less stressful living, along with many other benefits.
Eumenes 3y ago
> "For more than 95% of our evolutionary history we lived as hunter-gatherers. Therefore, contemporary hunter-gatherer societies can offer clues as to whether there are certain child-rearing systems to which infants, and their mothers, may be psychologically adapted," You can cherry pick anything that fits a narrative. This narrative advocates for more funding for state sponsored daycare, which does not resemble anything close to the 'caregiving' that was going on in hunter-gatherer communities. I bet 95% of our evolutionary history also involved bashing in skulls over arguments regarding food or resources, mass rape, living in caves, and not wearing clothes. Should we return to that too? The difference between those things and the example given in the article? Fortune 500 companies don't get more workers. Big corporations can pass the buck to taxpayers to fund childcare. Naïve activists will promote this in the vein of 'womens rights' as if dumping your kid at a state sponsored daycare is empowering or something.
- Podgajski 3y ago
  It could also be used to do away with the capitalist system for more anarchistic one and instead rely on community rather than on the state. In any case it all points to the fact that the way our society is set up, is creating a lack of well-being among humanity.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - robwwilliams 3y ago
    Disagree with your last statement. We can each look back on our own childhoods and make a local and biased assessment. I loved my childhood and all of the experiences. I thank both the modern American social structure and my parents. Could it have been improved. Well sure, probably—but that is not an experiment I can run.
- robwwilliams 3y ago
  Interesting work but yes, trying to extrapolate to best courses of action for child care in technologically advanced cultures should not be the focus of the discussion. Almost every epoch and population will have common and idiosyncratic features. Why not look back on child care 25, 50, 100, 200, 300, or 3000 years ago in any group/deme of humans? The variability will be striking even within any one population and will depend in large part on class structure, rank, and mean family size. Patterns of raising children will be all over physical, social, and behavioral maps. The groups studied here are primarily forest-dwelling hunter-gatherers in the western Congo region—-what used to be referred to as Pygmy populations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmy_peoples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmy_peoples). Fascinating topic but not of much policy relevance.
nanis 3y ago
A much more logical inference would have suggested that being surrounded with other individuals with familial ties is important, not others who are only there purely based on financial motives.
stareatgoats 3y ago
We can only move forward, not backward. The hunter-gatherer existence is often endowed with some notion of pristine, peaceful existence in harmony with nature, which is likely far from the actual truth. That said, I for one find many aspects (but not all!) of the present situation unsatisfactory, where the needs of macroeconomy and national priorities supersedes many of our most basic needs as humans. This article could indicate how one of those needs are currently neglected, and point to the need for more grownups to spend more time with their children (and other children) than currently is possible.
- treespace8 3y ago
  With all the massive life improvements we have with technology we could be investing so much more into our kids. Jobs could be flexible with short work weeks, and we could use that time to invest in kids. Parent, volunteer, mentor. Remote work done on a school site giving even more time to help kids learn.
  - paulryanrogers 3y ago
    Having worked remote most of my kids' lives, I'd say there are other challenges. Parents need time away from their kids too, and if every parent in society is working then how are kids supposed to get the adult attention and allow the parents some child-free time? When I was younger kids played with others in the neighborhood, and there was always a homemaker parent in every household. Now every adult has at least a part-time job. Kids still play in the neighborhood, yet weekly instead of daily. More often they are in daycare, school, or staying home.
    - treespace09 3y ago
      I’m thinking about everyone being more involved with kids. Not just parents of young children.
      - toomuchtodo 3y ago
        Lots of folks don’t want kids or to be involved with them too, another important consideration.
conception 3y ago
The book Hunt, Gather, Parent touches on this a bit. It takes 3-4 humans, not necessarily adults but cousins and whatnot, to take care of a child. Two? 6-8. Since western societies broke up tight knit communities, the support system for this in the west has been lacking and jerry rigged with tired parents and nannies etc ever since. The reason for the breakup is fun - https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/11/roman-catholic-church-ban-in-the-middle-ages-loosened-family-ties/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/11/roman-catholi...
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  Interesting hypothesis, but I don’t know if I buy it. Much of India had also long barred cousin marriages, probably long before the Roman Catholic Church, but the dependencies and village raising the kids dynamic still existed (until recently). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapinda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapinda If I were to guess, the main causal factor is economic/security independence. If living in a tight knit village, sacrificing your freedoms is the best option you have, then that is what most people choose. If there exists an option for you retain your freedom and have financial independence and physical security, then people tend to choose that (e.g. getting an education and a well paying job, etc). The latter basically destroys any chance of “village raising a child”, because no village bonds will exist, since everyone is moving around for their economic opportunities.
  - em-bee 3y ago
    If living in a tight knit village, sacrificing your freedoms is the best option you have, then that is what most people choose. If there exists an option for you retain your freedom and have financial independence and physical security, then people tend to choose that you make it sound like these are opposing incompatible choices. why not choose both? i'd love to live in a small tight knit community. going to school and getting a good education does not prevent that. and with more options to work from home it is now even more possible than it was in the past. also, people didn't move because they wanted to gain independence. they are forced to move because they can't find work at home. in europe the majority of people live where they grow up and do not move far from there, unless lack of local jobs forces them to. which is one reason why big cities are popular and growing because jobs are there, and it is more likely that future generations will have jobs there too, so they can stay.
Merrill 3y ago
Is this generally true of hunter gatherer societies, especially those in temperate or arctic climates? Most of our ancestors have been living in agricultural villages or pastoral camps for the last 50 or more generations, which is long enough to evolve adaptation to that lifestyle. Admittedly, urbanization is a quite recent and abnormal lifestyle.
- MichaelRo 3y ago
  That's an interesting observation. Studying "childcare" probably shouldn't focus as much on the difference between "city lifestyle" and "untouched by civilization" like whatever hunter-gatherer remains but between city and, God giveth, the still overly abundant (if not statistically the majority?) rural dwellers. Where kids still spend most of their time around their parents, help with house chores, attend the garden and the animals etc.
- ajmurmann 3y ago
  Do we have to go that far back? Multi-generational living was much more common, in cities as well, just a few decades ago and made all this much easier.
svnt 3y ago
The technical term for this is alloparenting, and it should be more well known outside anthropology. It has been extensively studied and I cannot find very much unique about this study, except perhaps the involvement of a child psychologist. If it helps get the word out I’m all for it, though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alloparenting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alloparenting https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,44&qsp=1&q=alloparenting+humans&qst=ib https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,44&qsp=1&q...
kakaz 3y ago
After a years of work, petabytes of data analysis and centuries of case study we know finally what's good for children care: a real family consist of mother, father, grandparents, siblings and friendly neighbors. It will be forgotten gieeber5as unimportant, mainly because AI hype does not follow such boring science...
getpost 3y ago
> the researchers say that children may be "evolutionarily primed" to expect exceptionally high levels of physical contact and care, What strikes me here is the phrase, "exceptionally high levels." I imagine children need a "normal" level of care; it's only "exceptionally high" in comparison to the deprived state of family systems in these degenerate times. I often reflect on the understanding in Attachment Theory, wherein a child a needs to have a caregiver who is sufficiently attuned to the child's needs. And it turns out, "sufficiently attuned" means that the caregiver responds in an attuned manner to 30%-50% the child's entreaties. As one of my meditation teachers says, 'That's not a high bar. What grade did you get the last time you scored 50% on a test?'
- temp112123 3y ago
  > 'That's not a high bar. What grade did you get the last time you scored 50% on a test?' An A: it was graded on a curve.
- watwut 3y ago
  Given that we actually give kids massive amount of attention compared to historical standards ... calling current situation "degenerate" is absurd. Also considering that by many statistics, children do better then they used to just a few decades ago.
  - elmomle 3y ago
    For some definitions of attention, yes, but not necessarily historically massive amounts of physical contact and (non -neurotic) care. Think of the images from the world over of indigenous women going about their days largely with their young children strapped to them.
    - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
      > Think of the images from the world over of indigenous women going about their days largely with their young children strapped to them. Until they can walk at which point they are increasingly gone to do the vital growing that happens away from adults.
ajb 3y ago
This is once of the things that remote work/homeworking may enable, if companies don't succeed in taking it away. If people can rely on getting remote work, they can arrange their living situation to improve the rest of their life, instead of for work: - young people living in large halls, to improve their dating prospects - groups of friends living close together across job moves, enabling longer term friendships - new parents living in groups to reduce the burden of parenting
- bequanna 3y ago
  Is this a thing? Other than one-off communes, I think this is still pretty rare and I’m not aware of it growing due to work from home.
  - ajb 3y ago
    Given that it requires changing property market choices, its only going to happen on a big scale if working from home beds in and people feel they can rely on it longer term. Having said that, I've seen some adverts for 'student hall ' like living for young professionals. That works because the investor can switch to the actual student market.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
  I laud your foreseen outcomes but we are far away from everything else we'd need. ex: A scenario where large public halls are widely built for young workers. An income to housing ratio that would allow people to make block-level housing choices. Widely available, affordable, walkable neighborhoods.
  - ajb 3y ago
    As I mention in my other comment, halls for young workers is the one I've actually seen happen already, albeit only at the top end of the market
- silexia 3y ago
  Only for the upper class. The lower class still has to go man the gas stations, grocery stores, warehouses, and factories.
shadowgovt 3y ago
I feel like in lieu of spending money on research they could have just asked parents. Basically every parent knows this. The difference between happiness and madness is having several babysitters on standby.
- Spivak 3y ago
  One of my favorite throwaway movie quotes -- from Annabelle (2013). > Dad: Hey. You know what, you shouldn't even be watching that stuff. All right? It could upset the baby. There's new research out there... > Mom: Oh, boy, more new research? > Dad: It's true. They are learning that babies in utero... experience more of the outside world than they ever thought possible. They recognize voices and noises, songs. > Mom: You know, I bet the men that did that research spent millions of dollars... when they could have just asked the mother for free.
seec 3y ago
I hate those types of "research" that base all their "findings" on observation of what is undesirable primitive living. What's more they don't even meaningfully quantify what can be qualified as neglect or abuse. My opinion as well as my own experience is that those children are far more likely to be subjected to much higher levels of abuse and neglect in this type of situation. As someone who has been neglected by his parents very early in life, and been given to be taken care of by various family members/friends/institutions I cannot wish this for anyone. You will forever wear a feeling of abandonment and insecurity that is unfixable. That someone seriously pushes this as a valid method for raising kids is beyond ridiculous and just shows how disconnected from reality modern "researcher" can be. It also entirely removes the principle of responsibility in reproduction. We are conscientious animals and we have a responsibility to not reproduce if it is suboptimal to do so. The problems we face right now as a species are precisely because we created a system that removed many of the problems preventing too large reproduction but without also enforcing full responsibility (without the modern support system the sentence would be death). I get pissed off at all of this nonsense modern take. We had a system; it was working pretty well. In fact, it successfully kickstarted the industrial revolution and continued until relatively recently. Then feminism happened and suddenly nothing works. Women are the only one biologically able to create new humans and they have all the necessary toolkit to grow them to maturity; up to the point they are ready and stable as humans to be able to learn and collaborate with others. But we destroyed all that, following dangerous ideologies that distort reality. And now we going to "fix it" by going back to primitive behavior. I guess that's a way to go full circle, no very efficient, but that's a way alright...
- watwut 3y ago
  > We had a system; it was working pretty well. In fact, it successfully kickstarted the industrial revolution You mean like when both parents worked 12 hours a day 6 days a week and 3-4 years old roamed streets in little gangs? Older siblings and other relatives worked those 12 plus hours a day too. That was industrial revolution and actual situation. In Germany, it led to kindergartens - you know so that 4 years olds have a place to go to.
- eastbound 3y ago
  I’ve been down this alley. No-one will understand you. Now I just moved back to being a normal person seemingly integrated and all in favour of feminism and all this shit, and I just laugh internally every time a woman tells me “I have been raped.” In my city, they add “But don’t tell anyone, it will make people racist.” Every. Single. Time. Ahh, it’s already bad enough that I know several of them. Not very healthy, but you have to admit that you can’t do anything about it, they’re not asking you for advice before they do it. So just take that popcorn and move on. Kids being disenfranchised? Kids abandoned? Needing state benefits for studies because they only have a single monster as a parent? Cousin getting mugged on the street? Throwing away a perfectly working system? Promoting the criminals while abandoning the adorable pupils? Take some distance. You can’t do anything. And if you promote the good thing, they’ll take revenge upon you. People actually want all of those quirks in the system.
apwell23 3y ago
> the researchers say that children may be "evolutionarily primed" to expect exceptionally high levels of physical contact and care, This seems like garbage article with just one interesting line that's never further delved into.
uoaei 3y ago
"It takes a village to raise a child" is more than just an empty truism.
KingLancelot 3y ago
[dead]
jisaacstone 3y ago
The book "Mothers and Others" discusses this at length, positing not only did mothers have much more "Alloparental" support in the past, but this was the key fact that allowed the evolution of our big brains. That is, alloparental involvement was a necessary precursor to homo sapian big-brain evolution and the key thing that was lacking in other apes. Very interesting and highly reccomended
nonethewiser 3y ago
> He argues that recent changes in UK policy show childcare is becoming more of a priority for the government Seems like some massive cognitive dissonance going on here. Outsourcing childcare is why there would be less attentive care in modern society. Virtually all women - old, young, mothers or not - would stay together with the children at all times in these hunter gatherer societies. We already have great daycares (albeit expensive) which are apparent contributing to this less attentive care. If we want to return to the old ways that would be communities of women staying home together.
- ip26 3y ago
  Sure, the mother would always be with the other women, but she would at least be able to nap. Modern parenting of small children operates by the maxim, sleep when the child sleeps; as there is no one else to look after them. (This is much more difficult in practice than it sounds)
paulddraper 3y ago
[flagged]
wslh 3y ago
The Zionist youth organizations [1] worked and work in a similar way where teenagers take care of children and a cycle is built. This is implemented also in Kibbutzim [2] and the diaspora as well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_youth_movement?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_youth_movement?wprov=s... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz?wprov=sfti1
philip1209 3y ago
Suburbanization is pretty much the exact opposite of hunter-gatherer life.
- nathanfig 3y ago
  I'm not a big fan of suburbs but in no way did this trend begin with suburbs, nor are densely urban or sparsely rural areas close to the community model described in the article.
concordDance 3y ago
I wish the article mentioned the proportion of cries (or other metric such as time being held) answered by non-parents/older siblings. That's the more important figure than number of different caregivers (where 10 people each holding the baby for half an hour total would count).
zbyforgotp 3y ago
https://open.substack.com/pub/woodfromeden/p/hell-is-other-people-why-individualism https://open.substack.com/pub/woodfromeden/p/hell-is-other-p... similar conclusions from an author that I like
DrNosferatu 3y ago
It takes a whole village to raise a child?
Racing0461 3y ago
[flagged]
stochastimus 3y ago
Speaking anecdotally from my own experience, having multiple caregivers may just increase the probability that the child can tell that at least one of them actually wants to be there.
scooke 3y ago
What the post implies about the article (which I haven't read) is that in some measurable way this increased attention results in children growing into functioning, balanced, effective, productive, balanced, adults whose presence and efforts contribute in a more positive way to their community... but this expected result is not mentioned. It is also implied by comparing it to "the West" where, of course, it is easy to find examples of today's youth behaving selfishly, destructively, and self-centeredly. But looking at the accompanying image... well, there doesn't seem to be many opportunities for deviant behaviour in the middle of the jungle! I will eventually read the article, in which I'm expecting to find that these people live longer, assert more confidence, happiness and contentment, within peaceful and harmonious communities (since _everyone_ has had 15 hours of care growing up).
nathanfig 3y ago
A lot of attention given to the inadequacies of the nuclear family, but industrialization seems likely the reason we broke into nuclear families to begin with. Smaller family units could move to where the breadwinner needed to go, breaking up intergenerational communities. Funny how our mobility is greater than ever, yet somehow less able to stay together.

247 points by stareatgoats 3y ago

As much as I welcome more actual science on this topic, I don't think the words 'new key' are at all justified here (and they aren't used in tfa). New to some WEIRD nuclear families maybe, but not actually new or surprising.

myspy 3y ago
What‘s a weird nuclear family? That’s the mode of operation. Without grand parents it gets harder. Single parents have it the hardest. Relationships to neighbors are not that deep.
- dave4420 3y ago
  WEIRD = Western Educated Industrialised Rich Democratic
  - lettergram 3y ago
    Imo it’s a derogatory term people in … alternative circles, like to use.
    - ithkuil 3y ago
      Is "alternative circles" also a derogatory term? I
    - brvsft 3y ago
      I'm guessing the term is supposed to point out the idea that what we think of as normal is actually not.
      - lettergram 3y ago
        Except it is normal to have a nuclear family? https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/ageing/household_size_and_composition_around_the_world_2017_data_booklet.pdf https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publicatio... It’s actually more common in the rest of the world than Europe and the US. It’s kind of crazy to say it’s WEIRD to expect nuclear families, when it’s the west that is the least likely (still the majority have nuclear families).
    - dave4420 3y ago
      It was invented by Western psychologists upon discovering that the results of their experiments on Western psychology students did not, after all, generalise to results that were applicable to all humans. If you’re hanging round in circles that use it as a derogatory term, you’re hanging round in the wrong circles.
stareatgoats 3y ago
The title had to be shortened - 'new' was the best I could think of. But it can be justified I think, both in relation to the gist of the article and the original title. If this was well established knowledge that that is new to me at least, albeit not really surprising, admittedly. (tfa? I couldn't get a hit on that acronym anywhere)
- closewith 3y ago
  TFA is "the fucking article".
- csa 3y ago
  > (tfa? I couldn't get a hit on that acronym anywhere) “the fucking article” I recommend using urban dictionary if a generic search doesn’t yield a result that makes any sense.
  - stareatgoats 3y ago
    ah, thanks. Did try UD but it didn't show up for me on the first nor second page. edit: seems I missed the top entry!
    - csa 3y ago
      Interesting. First result for me. I wonder if they adjust search results by geo.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- MandieD 3y ago
  The (Fine|Friendly|F-ing) Article

RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago

> When considering the implications for Western countries, the authors highlight that the provision of affordable high-quality childcare support, which goes beyond effective supervision, should be prioritized. > Ratios of caregivers to children were greater than five-to-one in the observed hunter-gatherer groups, whereas in UK nurseries each adult is responsible for numerous children. There is now way you can pay for these kind of ratios. These ratios can only happen due to a social structure that involves large extended families and a social structure that has a large proportion of the population (pretty much all the females) that spend all their time with each other and the children. However, that would be a huge step backwards from the progress we have made in women’s rights and equality.

micromacrofoot 3y ago
Why does it have to be all women?
- EGreg 3y ago
  Exactly the right question. People make all kinds of assumptions and thanks to the corporate world, both sexes now slave away for the market: https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=286 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=286 I wrote that in 2017 and it's only gotten worse since then
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    People could accept lower living standards and opt for single income families. However, people like to compete, for purposes of fulfilling their own ego and attracting a mate. That is why higher income individuals attract other higher income individuals. Corporations did not make people competitive. People want financial freedom, people want to buy goods and services, and people want to attract a partner per their liking.
    - EGreg 3y ago
      Corporations, just like governments, engage in pervasive propaganda, from impressionable school years all the way to adulthood. Edward Burnays said propaganda got a bad name after WW1, so they renamed it to "PR". It's how corporations got women to smoke, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torches_of_Freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torches_of_Freedom How they control the crowd, featuring Edward Burnays and his uncle Freud (whose theories became famous ironically because of his nephew): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04 How the corporate world market to kids: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/ They marketed it to Black youth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BjKyVzRr_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BjKyVzRr_U They marketed it to teen girls: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/03/30/social-media-girls-teens-depression-tiktok/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/03/30/social-m... Sometimes the mask comes off and they do it too openly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNzXze5Yza8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNzXze5Yza8 The for-profit model of news corporations and social networks has led more and more adults to become perpetually angry and tribal politically: https://www.laweekly.com/restoring-healthy-communities/ https://www.laweekly.com/restoring-healthy-communities/ There is even a term for what they resort to in order to please shareholders: surveillance capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism I was at the event in NYC when Sheryl Sandberg unveiled her book, "Lean In": https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Women-Work-Will-Lead/dp/0385349947 https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Women-Work-Will-Lead/dp/03853499... Make no mistake. YCombinator and shareholder capitalism leads to this inevitably. Corporations have to please shareholders forever. And there is more and more push for inclusivity and part of that means adapting people from traditional roles (e.g. women homemakers) into types of work that benefit the market. As both sexes flooded the labor pool, wages got depressed, and marriage declined. People are distracted into being e.g. gender warriors (Red Pill vs Feminism) rather than realizing they are all being exploited by a for-profit capitalist system that gradually relegates them to gig-economy workers and depresses their wages as they get replaced by AI. It's like a slowly-boiled frog. Anyone can opt out if they want. Opt out of the over-diagnosis of ADHD for their kids in public schools, by spending more time with them. Opt out of single parenthood and nuclear families, creating something far more expansive and with the benefits of traditional societies. Health benefits abound. Kids aren't overmedicated by amphetamines. Teens aren't depressed due to tiktok or angry due to drill music. Middle aged women aren't on antideprssants. Men aren't on opiates. Elderly parents aren't in nursing homes being drugged up. I'm not saying it's a utopia but the capitalist system has gone in a very bad direction, arguably worse than USSR where people drank vodka to cope. Look at any traditional society even within the US, such as the Amish, or religious orthodox Jews, or Christians in small-town America who still get together for Church etc. You don't have to be religious to make it work. But it takes a village to raise a child, and today's children are raised by government schools and indoctrinated to be corporate drones, for a job market that will be gone by the time they graduate. I recommend phasing in a UBI, at least, to help save the increasingly under-employed (i.e. making too few $s) people and families from falling through the cracks even further. The best kind of UBI can be done on a community level, for newlyweds and new parents etc.

hasoleju 3y ago

> childcare needs to give parents an actual break. In my experience caring for your small children is really demanding work. On the one hand you need to be focused on the situation in order to protect the children and on the other hand there is not much going on for entertaining yourself. Creative or focused deep work where you get a positive feeling of accomplishment also counts as a break from childcare for me. So a break does not necessarily mean not working. But I believe there are a lot of demanding jobs that are not a break from childcare. The other aspect I can relate to is the fact that in hunter-gatherer communities many different caregivers support each other. Every summer we travel in the mountains with 3-4 other families and their kids. Last year there where 12 kids under the age of 8. Sounds very stressful but actually it was really smooth. Having multiple parents available all the time allowed everyone to take a real break once in a while. And also the children enjoyed having multiple different adults they could interact with apart from their parents. So I really think this concept works, but only if you all live under the same roof. Which in practice is only possible during holidays.

manmal 3y ago
In our Montessori school, parents do pick up other kids occasionally, and the kids would just stay with the family for the afternoon. Ideally, kids take turns so sometimes parents get an afternoon off. Another thing that sometimes works (lots of preconditions) - living in walking distance of grandparents or siblings, and let the kids visit family frequently.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  > Another thing that sometimes works (lots of preconditions) - living in walking distance of grandparents or siblings, and let the kids visit family frequently. If you are not sufficiently rich such that you can afford personal services such as live in nannies and flights to visit family and whatnot, I find that living walking distance to close family is one of the biggest quality of life upgrades one could make (obviously assuming you get along with them). The redundancies it provides makes for much less stressful living, along with many other benefits.

Eumenes 3y ago

> "For more than 95% of our evolutionary history we lived as hunter-gatherers. Therefore, contemporary hunter-gatherer societies can offer clues as to whether there are certain child-rearing systems to which infants, and their mothers, may be psychologically adapted," You can cherry pick anything that fits a narrative. This narrative advocates for more funding for state sponsored daycare, which does not resemble anything close to the 'caregiving' that was going on in hunter-gatherer communities. I bet 95% of our evolutionary history also involved bashing in skulls over arguments regarding food or resources, mass rape, living in caves, and not wearing clothes. Should we return to that too? The difference between those things and the example given in the article? Fortune 500 companies don't get more workers. Big corporations can pass the buck to taxpayers to fund childcare. Naïve activists will promote this in the vein of 'womens rights' as if dumping your kid at a state sponsored daycare is empowering or something.

Podgajski 3y ago
It could also be used to do away with the capitalist system for more anarchistic one and instead rely on community rather than on the state. In any case it all points to the fact that the way our society is set up, is creating a lack of well-being among humanity.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- robwwilliams 3y ago
  Disagree with your last statement. We can each look back on our own childhoods and make a local and biased assessment. I loved my childhood and all of the experiences. I thank both the modern American social structure and my parents. Could it have been improved. Well sure, probably—but that is not an experiment I can run.
robwwilliams 3y ago
Interesting work but yes, trying to extrapolate to best courses of action for child care in technologically advanced cultures should not be the focus of the discussion. Almost every epoch and population will have common and idiosyncratic features. Why not look back on child care 25, 50, 100, 200, 300, or 3000 years ago in any group/deme of humans? The variability will be striking even within any one population and will depend in large part on class structure, rank, and mean family size. Patterns of raising children will be all over physical, social, and behavioral maps. The groups studied here are primarily forest-dwelling hunter-gatherers in the western Congo region—-what used to be referred to as Pygmy populations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmy_peoples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmy_peoples). Fascinating topic but not of much policy relevance.

nanis 3y ago

A much more logical inference would have suggested that being surrounded with other individuals with familial ties is important, not others who are only there purely based on financial motives.

stareatgoats 3y ago

We can only move forward, not backward. The hunter-gatherer existence is often endowed with some notion of pristine, peaceful existence in harmony with nature, which is likely far from the actual truth. That said, I for one find many aspects (but not all!) of the present situation unsatisfactory, where the needs of macroeconomy and national priorities supersedes many of our most basic needs as humans. This article could indicate how one of those needs are currently neglected, and point to the need for more grownups to spend more time with their children (and other children) than currently is possible.

treespace8 3y ago
With all the massive life improvements we have with technology we could be investing so much more into our kids. Jobs could be flexible with short work weeks, and we could use that time to invest in kids. Parent, volunteer, mentor. Remote work done on a school site giving even more time to help kids learn.
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  Having worked remote most of my kids' lives, I'd say there are other challenges. Parents need time away from their kids too, and if every parent in society is working then how are kids supposed to get the adult attention and allow the parents some child-free time? When I was younger kids played with others in the neighborhood, and there was always a homemaker parent in every household. Now every adult has at least a part-time job. Kids still play in the neighborhood, yet weekly instead of daily. More often they are in daycare, school, or staying home.
  - treespace09 3y ago
    I’m thinking about everyone being more involved with kids. Not just parents of young children.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Lots of folks don’t want kids or to be involved with them too, another important consideration.

conception 3y ago

The book Hunt, Gather, Parent touches on this a bit. It takes 3-4 humans, not necessarily adults but cousins and whatnot, to take care of a child. Two? 6-8. Since western societies broke up tight knit communities, the support system for this in the west has been lacking and jerry rigged with tired parents and nannies etc ever since. The reason for the breakup is fun - https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/11/roman-catholic-church-ban-in-the-middle-ages-loosened-family-ties/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/11/roman-catholi...

lotsofpulp 3y ago
Interesting hypothesis, but I don’t know if I buy it. Much of India had also long barred cousin marriages, probably long before the Roman Catholic Church, but the dependencies and village raising the kids dynamic still existed (until recently). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapinda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapinda If I were to guess, the main causal factor is economic/security independence. If living in a tight knit village, sacrificing your freedoms is the best option you have, then that is what most people choose. If there exists an option for you retain your freedom and have financial independence and physical security, then people tend to choose that (e.g. getting an education and a well paying job, etc). The latter basically destroys any chance of “village raising a child”, because no village bonds will exist, since everyone is moving around for their economic opportunities.
- em-bee 3y ago
  If living in a tight knit village, sacrificing your freedoms is the best option you have, then that is what most people choose. If there exists an option for you retain your freedom and have financial independence and physical security, then people tend to choose that you make it sound like these are opposing incompatible choices. why not choose both? i'd love to live in a small tight knit community. going to school and getting a good education does not prevent that. and with more options to work from home it is now even more possible than it was in the past. also, people didn't move because they wanted to gain independence. they are forced to move because they can't find work at home. in europe the majority of people live where they grow up and do not move far from there, unless lack of local jobs forces them to. which is one reason why big cities are popular and growing because jobs are there, and it is more likely that future generations will have jobs there too, so they can stay.

Merrill 3y ago

Is this generally true of hunter gatherer societies, especially those in temperate or arctic climates? Most of our ancestors have been living in agricultural villages or pastoral camps for the last 50 or more generations, which is long enough to evolve adaptation to that lifestyle. Admittedly, urbanization is a quite recent and abnormal lifestyle.

MichaelRo 3y ago
That's an interesting observation. Studying "childcare" probably shouldn't focus as much on the difference between "city lifestyle" and "untouched by civilization" like whatever hunter-gatherer remains but between city and, God giveth, the still overly abundant (if not statistically the majority?) rural dwellers. Where kids still spend most of their time around their parents, help with house chores, attend the garden and the animals etc.
ajmurmann 3y ago
Do we have to go that far back? Multi-generational living was much more common, in cities as well, just a few decades ago and made all this much easier.

svnt 3y ago

The technical term for this is alloparenting, and it should be more well known outside anthropology. It has been extensively studied and I cannot find very much unique about this study, except perhaps the involvement of a child psychologist. If it helps get the word out I’m all for it, though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alloparenting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alloparenting https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,44&qsp=1&q=alloparenting+humans&qst=ib https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,44&qsp=1&q...

kakaz 3y ago

After a years of work, petabytes of data analysis and centuries of case study we know finally what's good for children care: a real family consist of mother, father, grandparents, siblings and friendly neighbors. It will be forgotten gieeber5as unimportant, mainly because AI hype does not follow such boring science...

getpost 3y ago

> the researchers say that children may be "evolutionarily primed" to expect exceptionally high levels of physical contact and care, What strikes me here is the phrase, "exceptionally high levels." I imagine children need a "normal" level of care; it's only "exceptionally high" in comparison to the deprived state of family systems in these degenerate times. I often reflect on the understanding in Attachment Theory, wherein a child a needs to have a caregiver who is sufficiently attuned to the child's needs. And it turns out, "sufficiently attuned" means that the caregiver responds in an attuned manner to 30%-50% the child's entreaties. As one of my meditation teachers says, 'That's not a high bar. What grade did you get the last time you scored 50% on a test?'

temp112123 3y ago
> 'That's not a high bar. What grade did you get the last time you scored 50% on a test?' An A: it was graded on a curve.
watwut 3y ago
Given that we actually give kids massive amount of attention compared to historical standards ... calling current situation "degenerate" is absurd. Also considering that by many statistics, children do better then they used to just a few decades ago.
- elmomle 3y ago
  For some definitions of attention, yes, but not necessarily historically massive amounts of physical contact and (non -neurotic) care. Think of the images from the world over of indigenous women going about their days largely with their young children strapped to them.
  - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
    > Think of the images from the world over of indigenous women going about their days largely with their young children strapped to them. Until they can walk at which point they are increasingly gone to do the vital growing that happens away from adults.

ajb 3y ago

This is once of the things that remote work/homeworking may enable, if companies don't succeed in taking it away. If people can rely on getting remote work, they can arrange their living situation to improve the rest of their life, instead of for work: - young people living in large halls, to improve their dating prospects - groups of friends living close together across job moves, enabling longer term friendships - new parents living in groups to reduce the burden of parenting

bequanna 3y ago
Is this a thing? Other than one-off communes, I think this is still pretty rare and I’m not aware of it growing due to work from home.
- ajb 3y ago
  Given that it requires changing property market choices, its only going to happen on a big scale if working from home beds in and people feel they can rely on it longer term. Having said that, I've seen some adverts for 'student hall ' like living for young professionals. That works because the investor can switch to the actual student market.
WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
I laud your foreseen outcomes but we are far away from everything else we'd need. ex: A scenario where large public halls are widely built for young workers. An income to housing ratio that would allow people to make block-level housing choices. Widely available, affordable, walkable neighborhoods.
- ajb 3y ago
  As I mention in my other comment, halls for young workers is the one I've actually seen happen already, albeit only at the top end of the market
silexia 3y ago
Only for the upper class. The lower class still has to go man the gas stations, grocery stores, warehouses, and factories.

shadowgovt 3y ago

I feel like in lieu of spending money on research they could have just asked parents. Basically every parent knows this. The difference between happiness and madness is having several babysitters on standby.

Spivak 3y ago
One of my favorite throwaway movie quotes -- from Annabelle (2013). > Dad: Hey. You know what, you shouldn't even be watching that stuff. All right? It could upset the baby. There's new research out there... > Mom: Oh, boy, more new research? > Dad: It's true. They are learning that babies in utero... experience more of the outside world than they ever thought possible. They recognize voices and noises, songs. > Mom: You know, I bet the men that did that research spent millions of dollars... when they could have just asked the mother for free.

seec 3y ago

I hate those types of "research" that base all their "findings" on observation of what is undesirable primitive living. What's more they don't even meaningfully quantify what can be qualified as neglect or abuse. My opinion as well as my own experience is that those children are far more likely to be subjected to much higher levels of abuse and neglect in this type of situation. As someone who has been neglected by his parents very early in life, and been given to be taken care of by various family members/friends/institutions I cannot wish this for anyone. You will forever wear a feeling of abandonment and insecurity that is unfixable. That someone seriously pushes this as a valid method for raising kids is beyond ridiculous and just shows how disconnected from reality modern "researcher" can be. It also entirely removes the principle of responsibility in reproduction. We are conscientious animals and we have a responsibility to not reproduce if it is suboptimal to do so. The problems we face right now as a species are precisely because we created a system that removed many of the problems preventing too large reproduction but without also enforcing full responsibility (without the modern support system the sentence would be death). I get pissed off at all of this nonsense modern take. We had a system; it was working pretty well. In fact, it successfully kickstarted the industrial revolution and continued until relatively recently. Then feminism happened and suddenly nothing works. Women are the only one biologically able to create new humans and they have all the necessary toolkit to grow them to maturity; up to the point they are ready and stable as humans to be able to learn and collaborate with others. But we destroyed all that, following dangerous ideologies that distort reality. And now we going to "fix it" by going back to primitive behavior. I guess that's a way to go full circle, no very efficient, but that's a way alright...

watwut 3y ago
> We had a system; it was working pretty well. In fact, it successfully kickstarted the industrial revolution You mean like when both parents worked 12 hours a day 6 days a week and 3-4 years old roamed streets in little gangs? Older siblings and other relatives worked those 12 plus hours a day too. That was industrial revolution and actual situation. In Germany, it led to kindergartens - you know so that 4 years olds have a place to go to.
eastbound 3y ago
I’ve been down this alley. No-one will understand you. Now I just moved back to being a normal person seemingly integrated and all in favour of feminism and all this shit, and I just laugh internally every time a woman tells me “I have been raped.” In my city, they add “But don’t tell anyone, it will make people racist.” Every. Single. Time. Ahh, it’s already bad enough that I know several of them. Not very healthy, but you have to admit that you can’t do anything about it, they’re not asking you for advice before they do it. So just take that popcorn and move on. Kids being disenfranchised? Kids abandoned? Needing state benefits for studies because they only have a single monster as a parent? Cousin getting mugged on the street? Throwing away a perfectly working system? Promoting the criminals while abandoning the adorable pupils? Take some distance. You can’t do anything. And if you promote the good thing, they’ll take revenge upon you. People actually want all of those quirks in the system.

apwell23 3y ago

> the researchers say that children may be "evolutionarily primed" to expect exceptionally high levels of physical contact and care, This seems like garbage article with just one interesting line that's never further delved into.

uoaei 3y ago

"It takes a village to raise a child" is more than just an empty truism.

KingLancelot 3y ago

[dead]

jisaacstone 3y ago

The book "Mothers and Others" discusses this at length, positing not only did mothers have much more "Alloparental" support in the past, but this was the key fact that allowed the evolution of our big brains. That is, alloparental involvement was a necessary precursor to homo sapian big-brain evolution and the key thing that was lacking in other apes. Very interesting and highly reccomended

nonethewiser 3y ago

> He argues that recent changes in UK policy show childcare is becoming more of a priority for the government Seems like some massive cognitive dissonance going on here. Outsourcing childcare is why there would be less attentive care in modern society. Virtually all women - old, young, mothers or not - would stay together with the children at all times in these hunter gatherer societies. We already have great daycares (albeit expensive) which are apparent contributing to this less attentive care. If we want to return to the old ways that would be communities of women staying home together.

ip26 3y ago
Sure, the mother would always be with the other women, but she would at least be able to nap. Modern parenting of small children operates by the maxim, sleep when the child sleeps; as there is no one else to look after them. (This is much more difficult in practice than it sounds)

paulddraper 3y ago

[flagged]

wslh 3y ago

The Zionist youth organizations [1] worked and work in a similar way where teenagers take care of children and a cycle is built. This is implemented also in Kibbutzim [2] and the diaspora as well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_youth_movement?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_youth_movement?wprov=s... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz?wprov=sfti1

philip1209 3y ago

Suburbanization is pretty much the exact opposite of hunter-gatherer life.

nathanfig 3y ago
I'm not a big fan of suburbs but in no way did this trend begin with suburbs, nor are densely urban or sparsely rural areas close to the community model described in the article.

concordDance 3y ago

I wish the article mentioned the proportion of cries (or other metric such as time being held) answered by non-parents/older siblings. That's the more important figure than number of different caregivers (where 10 people each holding the baby for half an hour total would count).

zbyforgotp 3y ago

https://open.substack.com/pub/woodfromeden/p/hell-is-other-people-why-individualism https://open.substack.com/pub/woodfromeden/p/hell-is-other-p... similar conclusions from an author that I like

DrNosferatu 3y ago

It takes a whole village to raise a child?

Racing0461 3y ago

[flagged]

stochastimus 3y ago

Speaking anecdotally from my own experience, having multiple caregivers may just increase the probability that the child can tell that at least one of them actually wants to be there.

scooke 3y ago

What the post implies about the article (which I haven't read) is that in some measurable way this increased attention results in children growing into functioning, balanced, effective, productive, balanced, adults whose presence and efforts contribute in a more positive way to their community... but this expected result is not mentioned. It is also implied by comparing it to "the West" where, of course, it is easy to find examples of today's youth behaving selfishly, destructively, and self-centeredly. But looking at the accompanying image... well, there doesn't seem to be many opportunities for deviant behaviour in the middle of the jungle! I will eventually read the article, in which I'm expecting to find that these people live longer, assert more confidence, happiness and contentment, within peaceful and harmonious communities (since _everyone_ has had 15 hours of care growing up).

nathanfig 3y ago

A lot of attention given to the inadequacies of the nuclear family, but industrialization seems likely the reason we broke into nuclear families to begin with. Smaller family units could move to where the breadwinner needed to go, breaking up intergenerational communities. Funny how our mobility is greater than ever, yet somehow less able to stay together.