{"id":60318,"date":"2016-10-25T15:10:45","date_gmt":"2016-10-25T20:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=60318"},"modified":"2026-03-13T08:48:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T13:48:04","slug":"kids-need-grandparents-grandparents-need-grandkids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/social\/fatherhood\/kids-need-grandparents-grandparents-need-grandkids\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Your Kids Need Their Grandparents (And Grandparents Need Their Grandkids)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Vintage<\/a><\/p>\n

This year, both Kate and I lost our last, and most beloved grandparents — Kate, a grandmother who she adored, and me, a grandfather who I deeply admired<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These deaths have had us reminiscing about the role these loving elders played in our lives and in creating some of our fondest childhood memories. Kate fondly recalls summer weeks she spent with Nana in Florida, playing cards, doing crafts, and going back-to-school shopping. I remember Thanksgivings spent at Grandpa\u2019s New Mexico ranch, waking up to the smell of pinion wood and riding horses.<\/p>\n

Thinking about our grandparents has had us not only casting our minds back, but also reflecting on the immense gratitude we have for the relationships our own children are building with their grandparents right now.<\/p>\n

As the purveyors of an online magazine, we could hypothetically work from anywhere in the world. Yet we have chosen to stay in Oklahoma, not only because we love it here, but also largely because both sets of our parents live in the state.<\/p>\n

Kate\u2019s folks live right around the corner from us, and her mom watches Scout while Gus is in school, and while we work. One of the highlights of the week is Nana and Jaju\u2019s (the phonetic rendering of the Polish for grandfather) hosting of Sunday dinner, in which we, along with Kate\u2019s sister\u2019s family, gather to break bread together. After dinner, the family goes for a walk\/scooter-run around the neighborhood, or Jaju takes Gus, Scout, and their cousins upstairs for squeal-inducing roughhousing and the building of gymnastic apparatuses out of pillow cushions.<\/p>\n

My own parents live only an hour and a half away, and Gus and Scout eagerly anticipate their visits to see us, and our excursions to see them — especially when they get to have special sleepovers at Nanny and PopPop\u2019s house.<\/p>\n

For thousands of years, this kind of close relationship between grandparents and grandchildren was the norm, with at least one set of the former living not only close by, but sometimes in the same household as the latter.<\/p>\n

Today, in our mobile and dispersed society, grandparents and grandchildren often live states apart and sometimes only get to see each other once or twice a year. That is, unless Grandma and Grandpa, or the parents of their grandchildren, prioritize living close by, or making more frequent visits.<\/p>\n

Today we\u2019ll talk about why you should consider structuring your life with that priority in mind, and the enormous benefits that accrue to both grandchildren and grandparents alike when you do.<\/p>\n

Grandparents: Humanity\u2019s Ace in the Hole<\/h3>\n

For a long time, anthropologists puzzled over the fact that human women lived so long past their reproductive years.<\/p>\n

In contrast to female primates, who die in their 30s while still fertile, human women can live for several decades longer. Scientists wondered why this would be, since it didn\u2019t make sense from a strictly adaptive perspective. Older women don\u2019t reproduce and aren\u2019t very strong, but still tax a tribe\u2019s resources. What then was their \u201cutility\u201d?<\/p>\n

In answer to this question, researchers have forwarded the \u201cgrandmother hypothesis.\u201d According to this theory, being finished tending to the tasks connected to their own reproduction allowed older women in hunter-gatherer societies to turn their attention to making two other important contributions to their tribe, both related to their grandchildren.<\/p>\n

First, grandmothers helped a tribe have more children in general, as they could help raise the offspring of their daughters and daughters-in-law, freeing them to become pregnant again. While female primates go 5-6 years between having babies, human women can hypothetically get pregnant every year.<\/p>\n

Second, grandmothers could watch their daughters\u2019 children while they went to gather food, and grannies also had the time to gather food for their families themselves. This extra sustenance was vital in helping their grandchildren survive.<\/p>\n

Indeed, when 45 different studies<\/a> of historical and contemporary societies in both developed and developing countries were analyzed, it was found that the involvement of maternal grandmothers had a significant impact on the survival and well-being of their grandchildren (e.g., in one hunter-gatherer tribe their involvement cut the death rate for toddlers in half); in surprising contrast, the presence of a father had only a small effect. The involvement of paternal grandmothers often had a salutary influence as well, though it was more variable.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s behind the difference in effect between maternal and paternal grandmothers? Across cultures, the former tends to take a greater role in assisting their grandchildren. Anthropologists would say this is because they\u2019re surer of their genetic connection to those children; the child that a daughter-in-law claims is a paternal grandmother\u2019s grandson or granddaughter, may in fact not be. Yet both offer help to their grandchildren, just in different ways that have different effects; the involvement of maternal grandmothers increases the chances of children\u2019s survival (paternal grandmothers actually negatively impact the rate of infant mortality), while the involvement of paternal grandmothers increases the birth rate. The greater involvement of maternal grandmothers with their grandchildren may also simply have to do with the particular bond that exists between mothers and daughters.<\/p>\n

While the impact of grandfathers both historically and in modern times has been much less studied, they likely have a beneficial role in children\u2019s survival and flourishing as well. Biology seems to point to as much. While men remain able to reproduce well into their twilight years, after age 30 their testosterone slowly begins declining and estrogen begins going up. In a man\u2019s 50s and 60s, the \u201cbonding\u201d hormone oxytocin increases as well. These hormonal changes, which decrease aggression and sex drive while increasing the tendency towards affection and nurturing, lend themselves to a shift in older men\u2019s priorities — a turn away from a focus on production and reproduction and towards involvement with their grandchildren. Their involvement traditionally takes a different form from that of grandmothers, however; rather than adopting a hands-on role in rearing them, grandfathers become important mentors in teaching skills and values to the next generation.<\/p>\n

Overall, what the research says is that since time immemorial grandmothers and grandfathers have played a crucial role in helping their grandchildren survive and thrive, and thus in helping all of society survive and thrive. It\u2019s for this reason that anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy has called grandparents humanity\u2019s \u201cace in the hole.\u201d<\/p>\n

And grandparents magnify this role not only in cultures and individual families in which simple reproduction and bare physical survival remain salient concerns. In the modern day, grandparents of all kinds — grandmothers and grandfathers, paternal and maternal — contribute enormous benefits to their grandchildren, now in the form of greater emotional and psychological well-being.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an equation that in fact works both ways.<\/p>\n

The Benefits of Grandparents to Grandchildren<\/h3>\n

Research<\/a> has shown that grandchildren who have a close emotional bond with their grandparents reap a variety of important benefits.<\/p>\n

Children who have strong relationships with their grandparents demonstrate more prosocial behaviors like kindness and generosity and have less anxiety and depression<\/a> than those who don\u2019t. The involvement of grandfathers in particular has been shown to boost their grandchildren\u2019s performance in school, self-esteem, and ability to emotionally adjust and make and maintain friends.<\/p>\n

Why does a grandchild\u2019s close relationship with his or her grandparents have such a positive effect on their life?<\/p>\n

It has to do with the special kind of love, support, and mentoring only grandparents can provide.<\/p>\n

The love of a parent is singular, but during a child\u2019s formative years, it\u2019s also an incredibly taxed commodity. As a parent you\u2019re spinning a lot of plates. Not only are your kids in a high-need phase, but your career\u2019s running on all cylinders as you try to get ahead and achieve financial security. Your mental bandwidth is divided into a hundred streams, you\u2019re not always getting enough sleep (see: children\u2019s high-need phase), you\u2019ve got to keep track of all the details of their daily schedule, and your role is to be a disciplinarian.<\/p>\n

Grandparents, in contrast, are a step removed from the responsibilities of day-to-day child-rearing and are typically juggling fewer balls in the air. Their career is usually winding down, or they\u2019re in full-on retirement. They don\u2019t have to deal with kids 24\/7, are getting adequate rest, and can approach your kids with more time, fresh eyes, and unfettered focus.<\/p>\n

As the clich\u00e9 goes, grandparents are in a position to spoil their grandkids, and that\u2019s not always a bad thing. Sure, maybe your kid doesn\u2019t need a dozen of Grandma\u2019s cookies or another new toy, but every child is benefited when they get lavished with greater attention and support.<\/p>\n

Grandparents lend this attention and support in a variety of ways. Dr. James S. Bates, who studies the effects of grandfathers on their families, divides the kind of activities they do with their grandchildren into 7 categories<\/a> (which apply well to grandmothers too):<\/p>\n