Articles about the anthropology, psychology, and evolution of family life by Gwen Dewar
If you’re looking for evidence-based information about parenting, you can browse my site by selecting one of the topics on the menu bar on the far left. You can also try using opens in a new window this site’s search engine.
But some of my parenting articles are hard to find. That’s because they’re about quirky subjects, opens in a new windowlike Santa Claus, that don’t fit into any major category in my index, or because I simply haven’t had time to index them yet. There are also articles I’ve written for other websites.
Note: In July 2018, BabyCenter stopped hosting most of its old blog posts, including mine. As a result, many of the links below (to BabyCenter) have been removed. I may make the material available in another format.
So here is a sampler of these odds and ends–miscellaneous articles that you might otherwise overlook.
Biology and evolution
• Parents have always been subsidized
• Moms have always needed childcare help
• When “daycare” was run by kids
• Does morning sickness protect the fetus?
• Why don’t humans eat their placentas?
• Neanderthal tooth offers clues about breastfeeding
opens in a new window• Sexy dads
• Partible paternity in the Amazon
• Snobby monkeys and mean moms
• Happy faces trigger endocanniboids…if you have the right genes
opens in a new window• What can the capuchin monkey teach us about kids?
opens in a new window• Fear of snakes: An evolutionary perspective on the way kids learn
Education
opens in a new window• Can we raise a new generation of critical thinkers?
• Harry Potter makes you smarter: How magic unleashes creativity
• Be permissive, raise a scientist (editorial)
• Were kids smarter a century ago?
Ethics
opens in a new window• How child labor made a “race” of pymgies
opens in a new window• Curse of the herd
Happiness and quality of life
• Can meaningful happiness reprogram your child’s DNA?
• Money thoughts make parenting less meaningful
• Do kids need risky play?
Fun stuff
opens in a new window• Why do you want to eat your baby?
• Can too much tidiness inhibit creativity?
opens in a new window• Is the Easter Bunny a fraud? Does Santa make kids gullible?
• Contagious yawning: Can little kids “catch” other people’s yawns?
Health topics
opens in a new window• Making fatter humans: Are social cues tricking us into overeating?
• Stressful, unsupportive mates can shorten your life
• Too young for high-intensity sports and injuries?
opens in a new window• Obese kids and AD-36: Is obesity caused by a virus?
• Low vitamin D levels trigger early puberty in girls?
Mistakes in the media
opens in a new window• The sexualization of girls: Is the popular culture harming our kids?
opens in a new window• Adolescence doesn’t end until you’re 28?!
• Sperm, promiscuity, and bad blogs
• Claims about “inborn” math ability are bogus