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Medical Scribblings - 10 May 2004

Having a Grandma is good for you! Yes it’s official, confirmed by research in Canada and Finland. When they looked at families in the 19th Century they found that if Grandma was still about then families could successfully bring up more children. It seems obvious but then not everything that appears obvious is actually so.

There are various features of this research that are interesting. One of the areas that has never been clear is why women have a menopause. Other animals just keep having offspring until they keel over one day, but not humans. It seems that by stopping having more children when their daughters are starting a family, then the overall number of healthy children that you can rear increases.

Another feature is the concept of knowledge of the group. This tends to be poopooed in the modern world but people have to be shown how to do straight forward things and the presence of advice from older people is a great support. Its interesting that Chimps kept in a zoo have to be taught how to look after their first baby using a doll.

It all seems very odd now but when I was young in the 1960s we were told that with the ‘White Heat of Technology’ we would all have loads of leisure time. It never seemed to work out like this and many of you, me included, are roped into looking after the grandchildren. I’ve never actually seen any research into whether grandfathers are any use or whether they just get in the way and argue about things at great length. There is a nice film that the BBC did several years ago about the people of the Kalahari desert. In this the old chap of the encampment sits under a tree all night looking out for wild animals.

Anyway the message is that you can still be useful as you get older.

John Schofield