An ode to grandmothers and their grandmotherly wisdom
Kristen Hawkes, an anthropologist at the University of Utah, wrote that menopause “is not new and
it is not due to support for the elderly. Rather, grannies have a lot to offer their
grandchildren”. This grandmother hypothesis proposes natural selection favours post-reproductive life-spans because grandmothers
contribute significantly to the survival of their grandchildren, and thus gain indirect
fitness through kin selection.