Kanika G is a mother and the author of the Tania series of books, a series she started to entertain her daughter. In the Tania series, Kanika writes the experiences of a schoolgirl named Tania and uses simple everyday experiences for the plots that, though completely fictitious, could very well be true. Her daughter is her biggest critic and helps her with constructive criticism. Writing the books has helped mother and daughter bond and spend a lot of time together.Â
Any woman (and her man) know about menopause. But this seemingly ordinary phenomenon in middle aged women has puzzled evolutionary biologists for years. Why do human women experience menopause? Why do they live so long past menopause? From an evolutionary perspective, what is the purpose of living for so many years without the ability to reproduce? Why has evolution not extended the fertility period of women to last a lifetime? Menopause, you see, is a fairly uncommon phenomenon in the animal kingdom.
There have been several attempts to understand this puzzling phenomenon. One theory is that women are born with a fixed number of eggs to prevent too many mutations. So when these eggs get exhausted, menopause sets in. But women are born with about a million ova and when menopause sets in, approximately 400 ova have matured. Around the age of 38-40 the degradation rate of eggs suddenly increases causing menopause some 10 years later.
Image Source:Â menopausejane.com
So far the most popular and convincing explanation has been the ‘grandmother hypothesis’. The theory is this. Evolutionarily speaking it is advantageous at some point for women to stop having babies and care for the existing ones to ensure their survival. In a hunter-gatherer society grandmothers would collect food to help feed their grandchildren ensuring their survival especially in times of famine. Children with long-lived grandmothers had a better chance of surviving than those without. This, the theory proposes is why having grandmothers ensures the longevity of the human race.
Image Source:Â balsac.uqac.ca
In other words, according to this article, human beings have lived so long because grandmothers have always been around to help take care of the young ones.
The grandmother hypothesis goes further to say that, since grandmas were taking care of their grandkids, mothers were free to have more kids. As a result, long lived fit grandmas passed on their genes to many grandkids who survived better because grandma was there to take care of them.
Kristen Hawkes, professor of Anthropology at the University of Utah,  has been exploring this theory for years. In 2010 she developed a mathematical model that shows if you start with a population with the lifespan of apes, and factor in even a weak grandmothering effect, in about 60,000 years of evolution the life span of the population doubles taking it to the human lifespan range.
This theory doesn’t just concentrate on the lifespan but also states that it is because of grandmothers and their unique style of upbringing with an emphasis on social dependence that has given rise to a whole host of social capacities with renewed focus on learning new skills and cooperating.
If this is true grand mothers are the reason we are long-lived and smart.
Now isn’t that a feel good theory that is sure to warm the very depths of your heart? While there are many that contest this theory, there are many like you and me who are also rooting for it right? After all, who doesn’t love grandmothers?
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This article is a summary of some information obtained from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
http://www.theatlantic.com/
Please read them if you are interested in the theory, for a more complete information. The wikipedia pages give links to several scholarly articles and research publication too.
 Image Source: www.stylishwife.com
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