Grandparents Rights & The Grandmother Speculation – Baby Custody Authorized Blogs Posted by Bryan L. Salamone, Esq.

We have been looking after grandparents’ rights since 1996. Previously, grandparents had no right to visit or spend time with their grandchildren, except in certain circumstances:

I am very pleased with the developments in the law over the past 26 years. I have always been an advocate for grandparents’ rights on almost every occasion. Surely there have been a case or two where the grandparents had mistakes or problems that made them dangerous in the eyes of the court and in the eyes of their own children and grandchildren. These are not winnable cases. However, if you have an existing relationship with your grandson and your grandson’s father and mother (your son or daughter) have passed away or are incarcerated or unable to make decisions and the parent who has custody does not object, then should Have grandparents visiting or having custody. Rights begin when grandparents are denied access to their grandchildren.

Grandparents’ rights are more important than you can imagine. Recently, a professor of anthropology in Utah was studying “HADZA,” an ancient group of hunters and gatherers in Tasmania who eat a lot of wild foods like berries and tubers. In this society, children were too weak to pull on the bulb root, and that was left to the “grandmother”. In fact, the data from these ancient hunters and gatherers led to what is known as the “grandmother hypothesis”.

The grandmother hypothesis

The grandmother’s hypothesis represents the following: Children will thrive when grandmothers perform paternal and maternal duties so that the mothers and fathers can focus their own energies and resources on having more children at shorter intervals and preparing for the future of a hunter or collector by storing and otherwise accumulating resources.

The grandmother’s hypothesis has shown that a grandmother who is actively involved in the upbringing of her grandchildren can give birth to more offspring and that the grandmother’s genes are passed on to subsequent generations due to her support in the nuclear family.

The grandmother’s hypothesis goes on to say that if grandmothers are involved in the nuclear family, the people in this house and family may have more children in their later years as well. Research shows that grandmothers are a driving force behind the longer lifespan of our species.

Longevity is also related to brain size. If grandmothers did not look after their grandchildren, the direct parents would give birth less. The grandmother’s genes are passed on to those born through the parents. In theory, the grandmother is the matriarch or eldest woman, and the families that the matriarch or eldest woman helps continue to thrive. Families without the grandmother to look after the children did not. This relates to a longer life expectancy. The families in which the grandmother was present have more children and therefore carried more genes from the grandmother. The grandmother herself would have genes of longevity as she is a grandmother and is still active enough to take care of the children.

Evolutionary biologists and anthropologists have spent decades studying the phenomenon in humans where women actually survive their fertile period. Few other mammals have this post-menopausal lifespan in percentages and years.

In 1900, life expectancy from birth in the United States was 45 years. Over the centuries, women’s menopause would have been the average life expectancy. However, life expectancy is now 78 to 80 years. Modern women stay healthy decades after menopause. Very few species on this planet live so long after the ability to raise children has disappeared. The only species closest to us is the killer whale. Killer whales exist because the grandmothers stay in the pod and provide vital information about the hunting area (where the salmon is) and often stay in the pod with and care for their grandchildren and those who are injured or sick.

A biological anthropologist at the University of Massachusetts states that menopause was part of our evolution and that human women did not evolve for that purpose to produce enough eggs to keep up with menopause. In fact, human women start with 1 million eggs and only 300,000 remain through puberty. The life of human females after reproduction is extremely important to our species. In fact, grandmothers were used for family survival for millennia after becoming sterile, and indeed became the main child ruler in the family. Grandparents had not been represented in the nuclear family for thousands of years. Returning to grandparents and their importance to the family shows that they should have rights. During the evolution of the human species, the grandmother was extremely important and made Homosapiens move forward. It was only in the past 1,000 years that grandparents were no longer considered part of the nuclear family, and that is usually only the case in the United States. Most other countries like China have different considerations for grandparents. Grandparents are to be observed.

In 2021, grandmothers have not yet surpassed the mother as the main provider for the children. However, the grandmother’s hypothesis clearly shows the importance of grandmothers to family life, the mathematical models of grandmother’s impact on longevity, and the fundamental continuation of the species.

Incredibly, while almost everyone agrees with the grandmother’s hypothesis and its importance to the family, the question arises, “Why is health science and medicine not focused on life after menopause?” A professor of biology at the University of Idaho argues that this is such a new phenomenon that it is overlooked. Grandmothers are the secondary caregivers of children, according to the grandmother hypothesis, and if they are so important to the continued existence of our species it would be important to ensure that the laws and medications that affect postmenopausal women are consistent with their contributions. Not only for us as individuals, but also for their contributions to humanity as a whole, we have been able to continue on this planet. Grandmother killer whales are one of the few mammals that are also available to children as secondary. Interestingly, grandmother killer whales and killer whales in general have extremely large brains. The smartest mammals know the importance of grandparents.

Contact us to find out more about your rights as a grandparent

If you are grandparents and suffer from the disability or alienation of your grandchildren, please contact us. If you are a parent and want to discuss whether or not you should see your children’s grandparents see them, then you should reach out to us. We know the answers to these and most other affective grandparents and their grandchildren in New York State Law.