I cherished the time I enjoyed with my adult children before the had offspring of their own. With the arrival of my grandson Aiden in September and my granddaughter Riley in November playtime is over the we are all back to the business of
#HowToRaiseAHuman
At this same point in time I am struggling with how to explain science to lay people and communities. This is an essential need for my role in the California Veterinary Medical Reserve Corp and disaster response and in my role as a veterinarian when veterinary clients are causing harm to their pets by denying vaccination or giving disease causing fad diets or well-marketed pet foods like Blue Buffalo. So I signed up for The Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society event: Science and Society Symposium: Harnessing Science for Safer Communities. The goal was understanding how to get science understanding to people who need it. There were three stakeholder groups the lead the discussions: public officials, business characters and scientists. Essentially we need to learn a bit about each others "language" and ways to communicate. As final take home thoughts and next actions: What is truth? To a scientist, truth is objective reality. To others, reality is what they make it. How we come together is a shared belief in the same reality. How can beliefs be challenged or changed to save ourselves? Underneath this is understanding our humanity and evolutionary urges. The way humans make decision have been driven by survival...not of the strongest but by the fittest or most adapted to the circumstance. We need to better understand how we develop our beliefs and turn them into actions. How we have evolved as an intelligent and cooperative social species is the next "Learning Issue" that will uncover underlying assumptions and associated faulty or biased conclusions. Marketing has taken advantage of these economic behaviors. While fast thinking saved us from being eaten, our slow thinking with a big brain is ho humans will survive and thrive.
Now to the intersection with being a Grandma. NPR published an article about "Why Grandmothers May be the Key to Human Evolution." We have held the idea that man has survived because we had a bigger brain and we could coordinate and overcome larger stronger beasts, i.e., Man, the Hunter Theory. This may have contributed to humans evolving into a cooperative society and promoted intelligence. Now with questioning that assumption through measurable data we can recognize the undervalued role of MOM and GRANDMA to the survival of children and humans in general. It turns out that Grandmas and multiple care-givers are significant to their grandchildren's survival in the hunter-gatherer society. Grandmothers may hold the key to evolution. Young humans quickly adapt to multiple care-givers. This truly makes humans different than other apes or primates.
OK, so I am not part of a hunter-gatherer society but I can make the analogies to Southern California family life. When I attended my grand niece's first birthday party. I wasn't overly excited about attending, but I am glad that I did. Babies everywhere. I mean about 12 kids under 2 years old and probably 8 of them were less than 1 year old. Immediately upon arrival my daughter found me and said, "Here, I'm starving," and she handed my 6.5 month old grand daughter. Riley gave me a smile and I was "on duty." The same with the rest of the babies...grandmas and aunties and a few uncles too. The Birthday girl enjoyed her birthday cake and the adults enjoyed water melon margaritas. Everyone loved the Taco Man's Tacos. Food trucks are a great entry into catering!
The one year old will have memories based on the photos taken on the dozens of cell phones. The other important happening was a tribal meeting to recognize and value joint support for our children and our collective future. It was a reminder of my role and responsibility as a Grandma. Grandmas are important in this Southern California tribe too.
Just sharing my thinking as a scientist at the intersection of grand motherhood.
Diane
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