Paleo child care

The other day my 7 yr old grandson began a conversation/debate with “in my opinion”.  Blessings upon whomever taught him that.  It’s a necessary preamble.

Which made me think about how, in my opinion, we have not traveled very far out of the box when thinking about how to re-create or restore child care for parents who are working.  The nerd in me was intrigued and thrilled with the quick cultural adoption of the Paleo Diet and the rationale that surely thousands of years would have insight and wisdom into how we eat and how we raise our offspring.  Limitations of the Paleo Diet notwithstanding, I think we should be curious about how we raised our ‘offspring’.

I think anthropology has assured us that we didn’t group offspring into the same age groups, like a litter of pups, and “manage” them all day.  And at the same time if no one cared for them – even only casually – we wouldn’t be here. (think tigers).

My research into the literature suggests we ceded protection and entertainment of children to a perhaps fluid group  of trusted adults until children returned to the care of their parents.  I doubt we assigned that responsibility to the group member we trusted the least (or “paid the least”) or that we expected that one individual would spend all sunlight hours only chasing children.  This gem of an article sent by my fellow ponderer of such things, suggests that children’s young brains  are wired to form a number of relationships, all of which need to be secure and kind, if not fond, and presumably with group members who liked children, not to control freaks or warm bodies or bullies.  (Since I am a teacher of young kids I can say that.. I bet big sisters and cousins were likely recruits and mothers of other youngsters, already engaged in the preservation of the offspring.  And for goodness sakes, fathers!

My point here is that, in my opinion, we have stubbornly stuck to the Industrial Revolution model in care and education and I am thoroughly alarmed at the results.  We can wrap our minds around the legitimate craving of an occasional Paleo steak but we can’t integrate the science that tells us that our offspring thrive when they play?

That is pretty far out of the box for us, but if we can entertain Paleo, we can entertain re-imagining how best to care for, protect and “educate” our children.  Because we are doing a terrible job at it.  Turns out you don’t even need the tiger.

https://phys.org/news/2023-11-hunter-gatherer-approach-childcare-key-mother.html#google_vignette