If You WANT More Children, Live with Your Grandmother! New Study Shows

Have you ever wondered why our great-grandparents had so many children?

Most of us think they had plenty of time on their hands for ‘late-night activities.’

Others will say that women empowerment and the ever-growing role of the woman in the workplace is what has minimized the social pressures of children.

And there are some that will say Western influences have penetrated into our strong African beliefs and transformed our outlook on children.

Whatever your truth might be, turns out there’s an even bizarre reason for it.

According to two studies published in Current Biology last week, a group of anthropologists studied the Hazda tribe in Tanzania.

Kristen Hawkes, an anthropologist from the University of Utah, was fascinated by how productive ladies in the tribe were!

From the study, the anthropologists discovered that the reason for the younger females high rates of fertility was because the older ladies in society were still active, working long hours in the fields, cleaning, cooking and tending to different aspects of the homestead.

This left the younger women more time to ‘attend’ to their husbands, and you can only imagine what this means.

Yep, more time to indulge in the sensual pleasures of life!

Interestingly, even after having children, the presence of elder women in the society freed up the younger women’s time, as the older women would serve as babysitters after the baby had been weaned.

This left the younger women to attend to their husbands once more, leading to a greater number of children in the family.

The study, therefore, hypothesizes that the presence of a grandmother in the homestead greatly increases the number of children in the family.

Furthermore, the study also concluded that the presence of a grandmother during a toddler’s development increases its chances of survival from 50 to 75 percent.

So maybe letting your mother come live with you for a couple of years may not be such a bad thing if you’re looking to have more children!

 

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