Bringing up a baby can be a tough and lonely job. Here's a solution: alloparents
A squishy, slippery blob that cries often. Sometimes very often. That's how you – and everyone of us – began our lives.
Homo sapien babies are born incredibly needy. They have little to no motor coordination. They can't cling to their mothers. And many of them even have trouble breastfeeding. They require an enormous amount of attention, care and nurturing.
"Even the most adorable, sweet, easy babies are a ton of work," says psychologist Kathryn Humphreys at Vanderbilt University.
In Western societies, much of the responsibility often falls to one person. In many instances, that's the mother, who must muster the patience and sensitivity to care for an infant. And a lot of time she's working in isolation, says evolutionary anthropologist Gul Deniz, who's at the University College London. "I just had a baby 9 months ago, and it's been really lonely."
