for all those grandmothers and grandmothers-to-be

Every house needs a grandmother in it. —Louisa May Alcott

In a new research paper, ecologist and lead writer Zoe Muller stated that after reviewing more than 400 existing studies on giraffes, ecologists discovered that, like elephants, giraffes have complex social dynamics. Muller explains that giraffes benefit from the grandmother hypothesis: the idea that the presence of grandmothers increases a populations’ chances of survival because of the authority, knowledge, and resources they contribute to the group’s young. This matrilineal pattern can also be seen in elephants, orcas, and humans. Those who have studied the grandmother hypothesis contend that older matriarchs create a bank of generational knowledge.

According to the hypothesis, in our earliest years as humans, grandmothers helped gather food for their sons’ and daughters’ children. This made it possible for their daughters to have more children. Consequently, the strongest, most evolutionarily-fit grandmothers would have the greatest number of grandchildren who, in turn, would inherit their good genes.

Since retirement, I admit that I’ve often struggled to define my purpose beyond a lifetime of teaching and mothering. But this is good news, perhaps the best news for those who, like me, may feel a bit out-to-pasture. I question my evolutionary-fitness, but I’m giving myself the benefit of the doubt here. I can still get down on the floor to play board games and get up (albeit with some effort and the aid of nearby furniture). I can still run across the yard to fetch a ball (run might be too generous—it’s probably more like a jog, but it’s definitely more than a walk). I can still speak the language of my grandchildren (hey, I know what Tik Tok is and that mom jeans are once again fashionable!) So, I’m giving myself a pass on evolutionary-fitness, and I’m encouraging other grandmothers to do the same.

I’ve begun to contemplate the bank of generational knowledge that I could pass on to my grandchildren. I know that they like my brownies and that over time, I perfected a pretty decent slime recipe, so there’s always this. But I’ve come to see that my greatest generational gift may be more in the realm of love than knowledge.

I’d be the first person to admit that my bank of knowledge is limited at best and woefully lacking at worst. What we know changes so rapidly that few of us can keep up with this pace. But loving?

In his novel, The Guermantes Way, French novelist Marcel Proust writes:

My grandmother had a love which found in me so totally its complement, its goal, its constant lodestar, that the genius of great men, all the genius that might ever have existed from the beginning of the world, would have been less precious to my grandmother than a single one of my defects.

It goes without saying that there is much knowledge that grandmothers might gift their grandchildren, but Proust’s words get right to the best stuff: the abiding love that says you are loved—unconditionally, warts and all. This is, indeed, a constant lodestar, a gift which keeps on giving through thick and thin. This is what grandmothers are most fit for. Long after they’re not physically fit for bending and running, they’re just coming into their stride for constant, unconditional loving.

I take heart in the whole concept of the grandmother hypothesis. I’m both humbled and privileged by the role I might play in my grandchildren’s lives, a role that has much less to do with passing on good genes and so much more to do with passing on an abiding love. This is a purpose I can wholeheartedly claim.