What Important Role Does A Maternal Grandmother Play In The Life Of A Child

Nov 29, 2018 by apost team

If you had a grandmother who took an active role in your upbringing, we bet that you have many childhood memories that bring you comfort and joy when you look back on them. You probably felt safe being around your maternal grandmother. Many people don’t realize that there is a difference when it comes to how maternal and paternal grandmothers influence their young grandchildren.

Researchers at the University Of Cambridge explain that maternal grandmothers give us more than just love and affection, and there is a reason why maternal grandmothers play such an important role in our lives.

According to many different theories and information available and as mentioned below, we were able to summarize how a maternal grandmother plays a very important part in her grandkid’s life. Read on to learn just what we found out!

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As Julie Granka, Stanford University explains in The Stanford Department of Genetics; our genes are a unit of heredity that is made up of DNA.

Grandparents typically share about 25 percent of their DNA with their grandchildren. The exact number will be dependent on the DNA swapping. Every grandchild will inherit DNA from both grandparents, but scientists say that the maternal grandmother is the one who will influence the offspring more.

A maternal mother will naturally enjoy a closer relationship and connection to her grandchildren. This is because they are the ones who gave birth to the mother, who in turn birthed the children. It isn’t unnatural for a maternal grandmother to become very close to her grandchildren and even take on a very close role in raising them.

Many maternal grandmothers become more like a second mother to their grandkids, especially when they take on the role of babysitter for working parents. While paternal grandparents can love and interact with their grandchildren just as much, many arguments suggest that maternal grandmothers invest more in their grandkids.

Researchers at the University Of Cambridge explain that maternal grandmothers will have a 25 percent X-chromosome relatedness when it comes to their grandkids, both male and female. For paternal grandmothers, this X-chromosome connection is only passed down to their granddaughters and not grandsons.

Another theory by a group of researchers, "The Selfish Grandma Gene: The Roles of the X-Chromosome and Paternity Uncertainty in the Evolution of Grandmothering Behavior and Longevity," published in The National Center for Biotechnology Information talks about how paternal uncertainty can influence a grandparent’s incentive to be more involved in the lives of their grandchildren.

Paternal uncertainty means that some male fathers aren’t positive that the children they are raising are really theirs, as they were not the ones actually giving birth to them. This can cause a decrease in the willingness of a paternal grandparent, including the grandmother, to become involved with their grandkids on a more emotional level.

On the flip side, the mother will always be sure she is the one who gave birth to her child. This makes the connection stronger when it comes to her own mother, the child’s grandmother.

Alejandro Jodorowsky, a Chilean novelist, suggested that most people connect the most with their maternal grandmother out of all four grandparents.

There is no scientific evidence to support Jodorowsky's theories, but it is interesting to see how his interpretations collide with the knowledge of human genetics. He argues that our genes might actually “skip” a generation and pass themselves down from grandparents to grandkids, skipping the actual parents.

This could explain why grandchildren become more easily attached to their maternal grandmother than any other grandparent. Everyone is different in their relationships. Some people barely have a relationship with their maternal grandmother and instead, have a strong bond with their paternal one.

No matter what your family dynamic, we hope that it is a good one.

Do you have a strong relationship with your grandmother? Which one- maternal or paternal or both? Let us know in the comments and then pass this on to others to read!