devil's advocate

 Recently I've been reading lots of papers and working through data on violence and pathological conditions during the paleolithic. I think there is a tendency to view paleolithic hunter-gatherers as brutes or angels. I admit I've fallen for both betrayals. When I was young I thought of historical progress as being a march away from our natural brutish Hobbesian condition. Then I read things like The Worst Mistake by Jared Diamond and became sympathetic to the idea that instead, hunter-gatherers represented humans living as they were meant to, avoiding the physical and mental neuroses of the present. Having taken up study of the paleolithic more seriously at an academic level, I'm now of the opinion that while both stories are nice, they are just a vain attempt to deal with the utter chaos of both the present and past, where progress is actually non-linear and highly variable. I've seen skull casts from the paleolithic that are beautiful in their perfection and those bashed in by clubs. I've read polemics on both sides such as Sex at Dawn and War Before Civilization.

One thing I've read with great interesting is Robin Hanson's series on foragers. One provocative post tries to map modern liberal values to foragers. Unfortunately, I think it paints a rather unrealistic view of foragers. Another example is this feel-good article about how great hunter-gatherer parents are and how we should be more like them: 

Natural birth: If you want to up your chances of rearing an empathetic, well-adjusted kid, you might try to give birth as our ancestors did: naturally. Research shows that various medical interventions can inhibit important “love hormones” like oxytocin from being released during labor and delivery, interfering with the mother-baby bonding process. These hormones help provide moms with the energy and instinct to nurture their children, says Narvaez.

Breastfeeding: When possible, moms should breastfeed their infants—for a long time, says Narvaez. Ideally, for two to five years. A child’s immune system isn’t fully formed until around 6 years old, she explains, and breast milk lays its building blocks. The World Health Organization recommends that babies nurse for at least two years.

Lots of cuddling—and no spanking: Along with the nutritional value of breast milk, kids develop a sense of wellbeing from the positive touch that breastfeeding involves. Narvaez advocates near-constant holding and cuddling. “We know that positive touch has benefits to brain development, hormone-functioning, and appropriate social interactions,” she says, noting that babies’ brains are only a quarter developed at birth. She also encourages co-sleeping, and she cautions against spanking.

Responsiveness: Our hunter-gatherer ancestors didn’t likely see much value in letting a baby fuss or cry. You can’t “spoil” a baby, says Narvaez. Parents should aim to meet a child’s needs before he or she gets upset. “Kids who have really responsive parents tend to be more agreeable, and they tend to develop a conscience earlier,” Narvaez says. “This responsivity helps the child regulate. Gradually, the baby learns to calm him- or herself down.”
Many adult caregivers: Our early infant ancestors benefited from being cared for by mom, dad, and other adults who loved them. Surrogate parents also help to share some of the burden of parenting, helping to prevent exhaustion.

Free play with kids of varying ages: Needless to say, hunter-gatherers weren’t separated into age-specific play circles, exposing them to kids at different stages of development—and thus, enhancing their own growth. And studies show that children who don’t spend enough time playing are more likely to have ADHD and other mental health problems.

 

The whole thing seems rather euphemistic to me, coddling both moderns and presenting a noble savage view. It only lists "nice" things. Trolls in the comment section pick this up immediately. Where is the mention that paleolithic babies didn't go to daycare to be cared for by an unrelated adult alongside 10 other unrelated babies? I suppose that can't be mentioned, along with the reason why most modern women don't breastfeed very long (because most work long hours and most workplaces don't allow children), because it's illiberal and doesn't fit with the feel-good advice. 

What about the big-Is: Infanticide and infant mortality. I feel these are played down too much is these discussions despite the fact they really are the major difference between modern and ancient babyhood. Maybe forager mothers got to breastfed their babies and spend a lot of time with them, but they died in alarming numbers. Sometimes they died at their mother's hand- foragers didn't worry about raising sickly or developmentally-disabled babies because they often simply didn't raise them. Infanticide often also occurs because forager women DO work and they can't carry more than one baby on their back. This is called birth-spacing infanticide. 

Of course, this varies quite heavily among foragers. In the data I've seen, infanticide rates range from 1% in the San to 11% in some Australian Aboriginal groups to 67% of female babies in some Inuit groups. 

And then I'm reading Bryan Caplan's Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, where he presents some convincing data that it doesn't really matter whether or not an upper middle class parent chooses co-sleep or not, since nature matters more than nurture. I'm not entirely convinced by all his data, but that deserves its own post. Either way I do believe in some of the precepts listed above, but I'm playing devil's advocate because it irks me when I see the paleolithic or foragers used in just-so feel-good narratives.