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SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA, July 17, 2003: Grandparents doting on their grandchildren is more than just a stereotype. An article in the current Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences proposes the theory that nurturing grandparents are a powerful force in extending life spans through their care of the young generation.



Backing the “grandmother hypothesis,” a growing belief among anthropologists that women experience menopause so they become free from their own childbearing to care for grandchildren, the article by Ronald D.Lee theorizes that it may be one of the evolutionary reasons behind today’s long life spans. Natural selection has favored lengthening lives because older people have an important role to play in society and in family life.



Lee, director of the Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging at UC Berkeley, said his life-cycle research explains that many species develop longevity because of the need for nurturing. Documented with research from 18th-century Sweden and contemporary Paraguay, his theory explains the continuing role of parents from an evolutionary and biological perspective, what many of today’s active grandparents already know from experience. Tips on how to be a good grandparent are included at the “source.”

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