The grandma hypothesis: wallpaper she ain't.

Wallpaper she ain't

Grandmothers matter. So concludes my all-time favorite report of research in Science magazine (April 25, 1997). Admittedly, now that I've become a grandmother with a son and baby granddaughter living at home, I zoom in on all references to grandparents. But surely anyone would find Science's account of anthropological findings fascinating.

Studying a remote tribe of hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, a team of anthropologists observed that, as expected, women's foraging for food was crucial to the well-being of their offspring. But the surprise came when the anthropologists found evidence for the crucial importance of the hard work of the grandmothers in the tribes. These "incredibly fit" older women in their sixties put in long days of skilled labor digging tubers and collecting fruit for their grandchildren. Their foraging efforts determined the weight gain of their weaned grandchildren and allowed their daughters to produce and nurse new babies.

These findings about a heretofore invisible group of older women stimulated the anthropologists to form a "grandmother hypothesis." At last, an answer became clear to the evolutionary puzzle of why postreproductive human females, alone of all the primates, live so long after menopause: Women live to a ripe old age to make sure their grandchildren eat. Without children of their own to feed, they have time to provision grandchildren. By feeding the third generation, grandmothers ensure their grandchildren's survival and improve the chances that their own genes are passed on. Once again "altruism" and the bonds of kinship appear to provide human beings with a selective advantage.

But these newly noticed forms of cooperative female labor lead some anthropologists to question the accepted view that the human family evolved because males were needed to provision mothers. It may be grandmother power rather than male hunting prowess that allows for long, dependent human childhoods, so necessary for learning and socialization.

No mention was made in this story of any grandfathers or of grandfather labor. Were all the old men of the tribe dead already? And, one wonders, did grandmothers forage only for their daughters' children and not for their sons' offspring as well? We'll have to stay tuned to see how this new round of anthropological debate on the family turns out. My own hunch is that the importance of men's role as grandfathers will eventually be discovered. Certainly recent research findings on the important psychosocial role of fathers in their children's lives appeared long after the exclusive attention given to mothers and mothering.

Of course, in today's America, despite our mobility, we are a long way from a hunter-gathering way of life; in the urban jungle we are no longer dependent on wild resources. Yet grandparents still play a crucial role in the lives of many children. Nearly 4 million children in the United States live in a household headed by a grandparent. These figures come from the American Association of Retired Persons who, in the face of growing demands, set up an A.A.R.P. Grandparent Information Center (202-434-2296).

Today, more and more grandparents, and especially many grandmothers, are stepping in to rescue their grandchildren whose parents have been struck down by drugs, alcohol, traumatic divorces, mental illness, or death from AIDS. Unsung but heroic sacrifices can be observed in every class and ethnic group. In June, Dr. Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X, died from burns suffered in a fire in her apartment allegedly set by her disturbed grandson, the son of a long-troubled adult daughter. At a recent conference, I met a distinguished art historian, long divorced, who alone has taken on the arduous rearing of her drug-impaired granddaughter, the child of her addicted daughter.

In the face of new family stresses, new community-support groups have emerged to help grandparents return to a stage of parenting they never expected to see again. Perhaps we are replaying those earlier historical conditions when infectious diseases, childbearing deaths, accidents, and war routinely took a huge toll on young adults. Orphans, young widows, and widowers have existed in the past, but, when there were so many immigrant families and life expectancy was shorter, there were fewer surviving or solvent grandparents who could take up the slack.

In our family's case, a sudden death in childbirth precipitated our need to help our son raise his baby daughter in a three-generation family household. We have been spared those bitter struggles in which parents have had to cope with their adult children's impairments, sometimes even engaging in bitter custody battles. Tragic fate seems easier to cope with than the effects of wrong choices, mental ills, and failed lives. The role of being back-up, auxiliary resident caretakers is far easier than the one assumed by grandparents who bear the whole burden of responsibility for their grandchildren's upbringing.

And, as always, having money, a nanny, and lots of extended family members can make things easier. How thankful I am to have been one of the last generation of Catholic women who married young, wanted a large family, and, without a shred of guilt, enjoyed producing five boys and a girl in ten crowded years. Now, as my husband and I worship our own little Shirley Temple princess come to stay, there exists a large cast of adoring George Murphys to take part in the family tapdance routines. Babies are like a sparkling fire in the family hearth, drawing everyone close together and warming them through and through. Yes, a ratio of ten adults to two babies is about right in this age of superparenting. This will be the count this summer when our six children, two spouses, and two beloved grandchildren rent a house in Ireland for a brief vacation (!?).

Happily, another news report from the family front confirms a long-held belief of mine. Watching my son and son-in-law take care of their babies demonstrates beyond a doubt that men can nurture children - and their grandchildren - as well as women can. Tenderness, patience, love, and attentive care are masculine as well as feminine qualities. When Jesus used female imagery for God or for himself, likening himself to a mother hen for instance, he embodied the fact that loving care transcends any limits set by gender. When Saint Paul uses childbearing analogies to describe his ministry, he heads a long line of disciples following Christ's example. I respond with enthusiasm to those feminist theologians who speak of Jesus on the cross as giving birth to our new creation.

We Christians of the West need more practice in thinking of God as our Mother. Or perhaps with new eyes I can affirm that God is not just father, mother, lover, and friend, but grandmother as well.