Mothers and Others

“Mothers and Others”

The article describes differences and similarities in parenting between apes and humans, parent- infant bond.

Written by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy.

Sarah Hrdy was born in July 11 1946 in Dallas, Texas, however was raised in Houston. She is an American anthropologist and primatologist who have made a few major contributions to sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. She worked on the langur colonies decoding the infanticide reasons and proved her hypothesis that such a phenomenon as infanticide occurs because of over crowdedness and a desire of males to pass on their genes to new generation as much as it’s possible and as fast as it’s possible because langur colonies have a very unstable male domination. Also, she discovered that females in the period of ovulation mate with as many males as it’s possible to protect their children by giving males the “illusion of paternity”. Sarah Hrdy wrote many books about parent- infant relationship about humans and apes and strongly stands for an affordable child care.

a . Gestation- period of pregnancy.

b. Tight- knit- strongly bonded.

c. Kin- blood relatives.

d. Delegate- trust to the authorized person.

e. Converged- have met.

This presentation relates the most with chapter 6, pages 146- 149, I found those pages to be the most helpful in order to fully understand the article. A material about the Mother- Infant Bond, Alloparenting and Adult Males and Infant Care is detailed, narrow and mostly written in easy- to- understand words reflect the most part of the Sarah Hrdy’s article “Mothers and Others”.

I had no idea that there is such a thing that’s called alloparenting and especially was surprised that it is practiced within a human society at all and there are some human societies where man believe that each sexual partner with whom woman would have a sexual relationship is going to pass on a part of his DNA to the child. One of the most interesting parts I consider the paragraphs about the male hormonal reaction against the pregnant woman, it is amazing and truly impressive, and they are not such insensitive as they seem to be. I found it very interesting to read about parenting from the child’s side of view and I do agree with the statements author raised about parenting. Being not completely adult I still remember what I deeply wanted and needed from the people around me while being a tiny human.

1. Apes as well as humans are cooperative breeders, this way of raising infants makes it much easier to raise children in “less- than- ideal habitats”. Mothers need to be supported in order to be more committed to a child.

2. The genetic relatedness is not really required in order to “love” an infant; the formula of “love” lies in people’s or animal’s emotional and hormonal reaction to the infant’s cues.

3. The infant learns life from other people’s perspective that are around, asking questions like: Are those people good? Will they help me to survive and support me? Can I count on them and trust them?

People’s and ape’s relationship between parents (blood relatives or alloparents) and infants is very similar, children are in search of comfort, stability and support rather than food.

The article says that humans and apes are similar in parent- infant relationship. However human mothers are less able to care about their infants by themselves, because they do not have a fur and it is very hard to get a good and affordable child care. Our big and rush full world makes it very hard for a woman to raise a child by herself and in many cases even not being the only parent for the child is not in much benefit.

I liked the article a lot, in some point it may be because I was raised only by my mother and have been through tough times. The article is full of love and I feel strong emotions of the author. She made an incredible job. Even though I did not understand many words and it was sometimes hard to read I was deeply touched by Sarah Hrdy’s thoughts. I wish everybody in the world would understand what do children need and how to make them feel wanted and secure. My mom did a great job being a father as well as being a mother.