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Modern life may have made many things easier, but scientists say raising a child is not one of them.
A study of modern hunter-gatherer groups suggests that our Stone Age ancestors provided their children with better child care than we do today.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge found that children in the Mbendjil Byaka region in the Republic of Congo receive nine hours of care a day from up to 15 different caregivers.
Crying babies are cared for by the mother’s support network more than half the time, giving mothers more time to rest.
The study’s authors say that these results indicate that modern parenting methods may conflict with children’s developmentally programmed needs.
Scientists suggest that children in Stone Age hunter-gatherer groups may have had better child care than modern children
The study’s authors argue that mothers in the West have not faced such pressure and little support for the majority of humankind’s evolutionary history (stock image)
Insight into these modern hunter-gatherers could tell us more about how humans lived in the Stone Age, says Dr. Nikhil Chaudhary, lead author of the study.
“For more than 95% of our evolutionary history, we have lived as hunter-gatherers,” Dr. Choudhary said.
“Therefore, contemporary hunter-gatherer societies can provide clues as to whether there are particular child-rearing systems to which infants and their mothers can be psychologically adapted.”
The Mbendjele BaYaka live in the forests of northern Republic of the Congo where they depend on hunting, fishing, gathering, and collecting honey for sustenance.
Evolutionary anthropologists stayed with Mbendjili Bayaka between March and July 2014.
Mbendjele BaYaka lives in the northern jungles of the Republic of the Congo and relies on hunting, fishing, gathering, and honey collection.
During these months, the researchers monitored the children for 12 daylight hours and recorded how often they were looked after and by whom.
The researchers found that between 10 and 20 different caregivers would be involved in the baby’s care and that a mother’s support system would respond to more than half of her baby’s crying episodes.
Children were never left alone, spent long periods of time in physical contact with adults, or receiving close care.
When babies cried, they were attended to in less than 10 seconds in half the cases and in less than 25 seconds in 90% of the cases.
Children in hunter-gatherer societies, such as in the Stone Age, were rarely left alone, and received constant care from a wide range of different caregivers including older children.
Older infants and teens often participate in caregiving, which the report’s authors suggest gives them experience and helps reduce anxiety about parenting.
This suggests that children may be developmentally primed to expect high levels of attention and physical contact from many different caregivers.
However, the provision of high-quality support for children in Western countries is limited, and rationing between children and caregivers is high.
“The nuclear family system in the West is a world away from the communal living arrangements of hunter-gatherer societies like the Mbendjili,” says Dr Choudhury.
“Childcare has finally become a priority in the government budget, but there is still a lot to do.
“As a society, from policymakers to employers to healthcare services, we need to work together to ensure mothers and children get the support and care they need to succeed.”
“Parenting manuals that expect children to spend long periods of time playing alone or without physical contact may conflict with children’s psychological and biological expectations,” Dr. Chaudhry and colleagues wrote in the study.
This graph shows complex caring relationships between caregivers (gray circles), children under 1.5 years old (blue circles), and children under 4 years old (green circles)
The study also suggests that Stone Age societies may have better prioritized giving mothers comfort.
The authors write that it is common in Western societies for childcare to be used solely to give parents time to go to work rather than time for themselves.
This means that parents have no time to rest or recover, which is in stark contrast to the parenting practices of hunter-gatherers and our Neolithic ancestors.
They argue that throughout all of human history, parents have never been under such intense pressure or faced such a lack of support.
“Supporting mothers also has numerous benefits for children such as reducing the risk of neglect and abuse, alleviating family adversity, and improving maternal well-being which in turn enhances maternal care,” says co-author and child psychologist Dr. Annie Swanepoel.
It was the study Published in the Journal of Developmental Psychology.
(Tags for translation) Daily Mail