Grandparents’ relationships - newspaper article

At first I thought it meant grandmothers have more emotional attachment to their grandchildren, than their children when they were small but it’s not. It’s to our children as adults, so obviously it’s going to be different for the little ones.

I still love to see my children though, and yes...rather than the grandchildren at times.

I agree, it seems a bit of an odd study, not comparing like with like. They should have measured grandmother's response compared to mother's. This would both consider the female response to children at different ages.

I think most women respond warmly to small children, more so if they are related.

Thanks Monica

Well, it was reported in The Guardian and on online news as well as broadcast news today. It was also published in a peer reviewed journal with a publication date of 17 November 2021
The neural correlates of grandmaternal caregiving
James K. Rilling, Amber Gonzalez and Minwoo Lee
Published:17 November 2021
doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.1997

The journal is the Proceedings of the Royal Society B They do not come more reputable than that.

I think the reearch you read 6 years ago was something similar, but not this.

Too many to count, this is at least 6 years old.

Same as article that supported that men were not biologically programmed to be monogamous?

I missed that one. Where was it?

I agree with M0nica and Madgran77 .

I think it has more to do with age than the mother/child grandmother/grandchild relationship. I would imagine if you compared the results of mothers’ of 4 year olds, to the mothers’ of 34 year olds, the results would be the same.

There was a time when I thought my son was the most magical creature to grace the planet. I was in awe of him. Now he’s 37, and whilst I obviously still adore him, I don’t have that same rush of emotion as I used to. I suspect my relationship with my grandson will evolve the same way, assuming I’m fortunate enough to see him grow into a man. I can’t imagine watching at him as a 20 years old, helping his dad dig the garden, and thinking he is the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen, for example.

Same as article that supported that men were not biologically programmed to be monogamous?

I read both articles and they do not seem very scientific to me

I think it ids a different relationship rather than a more emotional relationship.

And I agree with what Monica says

It is interesting to see this quantitively analysed, but they are not comparing like with like and are merely stating the blindingly obvious that people have a more emotional attachment to a small baby than they do to an adult.

To begin with grandchildren come in all ages The study does not answer the question as to whether this more emotional relationship stays unchanged as the grandchild grows older. personally I suspect not but that it evolves into a similar relationship to that we have with adult children.

Similarly there is no measure of the emotions when looking at a grandchild as distinct to looking at an unknown and unrelated baby. The difference may have more to do with the youth and vulnerability of a baby than saying anything special about the grandmother/grandchild relationship.

Actually the more I think about it, the more pointless this study seems.