Episode Transcript
Dr. Jones: It takes a village. We've heard that phrase when it comes to child rearing, but what does it really mean? What does it mean to be a cooperative breeder? This is Dr. Kirtly Jones from Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Utah Healthcare. Today on The Scope we're going to talk about cooperative breeding.
Announcer: Covering all aspects of women's health, this is the Seven Domains of Women's Health with Dr. Kirtly Jones on The Scope.
Dr. Jones: What does it mean when we say it takes a village? That's a phrase that might be a proverb from Africa. We don't know exactly where it came from. But we know that raising a child one-on-one, one mom one kid, which may be seen in some animals in the animal kingdom, it doesn't really happen in humans. And when it does, things often don't go so well. We know that among evolutionary strategies in reproductive behavior, cooperative breeding, which is where several adults and juniors will help raise the newborns, is a relatively common strategy.
My very favorite cooperative breeders are coyotes. It turns out that coyotes have this very unique strategy of only making eggs and sperms for a couple of months in the winter. The females are mono-ovulaters. They make eggs for about one day. The males will make sperms for a couple of months. They pair up in the winter. They get pregnant. They have their babies, and then the males don't make sperm anymore. They aren't looking for sex anymore, and the females don't ovulate again until the following year.
The rest of the year they spend together raising their pups, and they are helped with their aunties and uncles from the previous year who aren't quite grown up enough to have pups on their own. So they have blood relatives, often the kids from the previous year who are adolescents, maybe not quite able to make it on their own, but they help out. Now, I think that's a pretty good idea. Number one, it's kind of a form of population control. Number two, you have a whole bunch of other members of the family keeping an eye on the kids. There are some birds that do this too. Particularly, I'm very fond of Pinion Jays. They also are cooperative breeders. They cache nuts, pine nuts in the ground, and then they use them for feeding and breeding the following year, but it takes about a year or so for a Pinion Jay to grow up. And so the next year, the young that aren't quite ready to breed help the parents feed their newborns.
So cooperative breeding and cooperative behavior in childrearing helps the child succeed. Now, in humans it also helps moms from going nuts. A mom all by herself with several children has a lot of stresses financially, emotionally. They don't get sleep. So in humans we usually think of the other member of the pair, which is the husband or the male or the other partner, could be a female, as being the co-rearer of children. But actually it works best when there are a number of known adults involved in raising kids. So a number of studies in a wonderful book called "Mothers and Others" by Sarah Hrdy looked at how kids learn how to understand others. And it's watching and talking to a number of adults who surround the children as they grow. The grandmother theory, the reason why humans live so long and the Great Apes don't live so long, is that grandmothers help their daughters be better mothers. So their daughters can have more kids more often that are fed better. So we are cooperative breeders. Not only do we have help from our aunties and our sisters and our moms, but we have help within our neighborhood. When a kid falls down, we all help. When we see a kid alone in the store with no mom nearby, we start going on the hunt for the mom. Even if the kid isn't distressed, we say, "Where is that kid's mommy?" And we look out for the mom. Kids who are hungry get fed by strangers. So we are cooperative breeders and it's best for the kids and the best for the moms. Now, a little coda from my backyard. I have quail in my backyard and I love to watch the quail. Quail babies are born and they immediately, as little tiny fluff balls that are only about an inch tall, have to run around and learn to feed themselves. So the mom and the dad quail pair up early in the spring. They make a nest full of little babies. They have about 14 little babies, and then they watch out. One's always watching while the other one is eating and guiding the little quail babies to wherever the food source might be.
So I saw a dad, a male quail with 14 babies and no mom, and I thought, "Oh my goodness, he'll never be able to watch out over all of them." And I was pretty worried. And a week later I saw two dads, two males raising the 14 babies. And I've been watching these two guys who together are watching out over all these little babies as they grow. So it takes a village and the village can be different colors and different flavors, but we all need to work together to raise our kids. And for those of you thinking about having kids, where's your village going to come from?
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