¿You can teach us something so far about paleontology or anthropology teach us something about our children? In my opinion, very much, possibly understanding our characteristics as a species and its process of hominization be the best and safest parenting guide that exists once we are in a different cultural environment from the one in which we develop as a species.
First, it should be noted, anyway, that the human being is a cultural being and we are able to adapt to very different natural habitats and change our culture to adapt to them. A human group badly adapted to its physical or historical environment, ends up disappearing, either by natural extinction, either by cultural dominance of another group or by conquest and extermination. But, in principle, we humans can adapt to almost everything and survive.
The Human history tells us about very different civilizations. Some, for example the Spartan, sought to raise strong warriors and with no more emotional bond than the passion for the country. It was not in vain that they killed weak babies, exposed the toughest tests to children and valued, above all, the ability to make war and defend Sparta. I don't know if they would be happy, but it is certainly not the form of happiness we hope to offer our children.
Without resorting to such extreme references, it is clear that our form of social, family organization, our values and beliefs, our norms and power structures differ greatly from one culture to another.
Getting back to the subject of paleontology and anthropology, its importance to understand the human being and especially our children, your reactions and feelings, is very valid.
Our species
The human being, the sapiens sapiens, it has an existence as a differentiated species of about 120,000 years, although previously there is a long process of hominization which leads to our particular characteristics.
Genetically we are equal to any cromagnon who lived in a cave and hunted in tribe. Beyond that, we are descendants of a genetic line that goes back more than a million years, adapted to a natural environment and with a way of life consistent with it.
Our genes are from hunter gatherers and our young are as they are because we have those genes, those of monkeys that reached standing, developed huge brains and sought life by hunting and gathering in small groups.
10,000 years ago we started cultivating and becoming sedentary. Biologically, this is already a very novel and short-term cultural adaptation. It has not given us time to modify our genetic heritage or our natural adaptation to this new medium. I no longer speak of industrial society, which is just over 200 years old. We are newcomers to the species, with enormous success but dependent on our instincts and reactions of our heritage.
Characteristics of Homo Sapiens Sapiens
Let's analyze then the human being as a whole, culturally adaptable, but naturally endowed with certain characteristics which are very evident in our children, especially in babies, who are pure instinct but endowed with an enormous capacity for learning, which is what, in the end, characterizes the human being.
To learn It is our great capacity and what has given us the evolutionary success and extraordinary expansion of the species. And that is what our young want to do. But, to do so in the best and emotionally safe conditions, they need our upbringing and education to be as consistent as possible with their characteristics as a species.
Human breeding and its dependence
The standing and cranial size They have conditioned human offspring to be born with a marked dependence. They cannot feed themselves, in fact, they are not even able to hold on to the mother, who, anyway, has lost the hair of the apes. Human milk flows almost continuously when the baby is taken to the breast and breast, its fat concentration is comparatively low, as happens in all species that use breastfeeding on demand and frequent.
Other animals, those that use lairs, produce high-fat milks so that the young can be left alone waiting for the mother. We do not, we must carry the baby in arms, limiting the mother a lot, and we give them a milk that needs frequent breastfeeding.
This extreme dependence of the mother is solved with something that all mammals have but that in the human female is of enormous power: the maternal instinct that emotionally links the mother and the baby, so that such an absorbing upbringing is satisfactory. That is why our baby claims the mother and wants to be carried in her arms, it is a natural environment, both in terms of feeding, and in terms of survival. A baby left on the floor was a dead baby if his mother walked away. That is why the human child will instinctively claim his mother or trusted caregiver if he is left alone. That reveals that he is a healthy child, instinctively programmed to survive.
The relative difficulty of childbirth of the human female It is explained by the conjunction of the largest cranial perimeter of the offspring, which, although the widening of the pelvis partially resolves, occurs in an angled ventral position, since there is a right angle in the pelvis and vagina that the young must travel.
We will see in the following topic other characteristics of the human species and specifically of our offspring seen from the explanation of anthropology and paleontology that expose the circumstances in which it has resulted the hominization of these mammals primates of big brain and long childhood that we are human beings.
