By relieving a mother of some of her child-raising responsibilities, so the thinking goes, grandmothers make it easier for their daughters to have more children and also make it possible for those children to have longer lives by helping them during the difficult early years of life.
Grand theories of development include psychoanalytic theory, learning theory, and cognitive theory. These theories seek to explain much of human behavior, but are often considered outdated and incomplete in the face of modern research.
In the 1960s, researchers came up with the "grandmother hypothesis" to explain the human side of things. The hypothesis is that the help of grandmothers enables mothers to have more children. So women who had the genetic makeup for longer living would ultimately have more grandchildren carrying their longevity genes.
Then, in 1956, Rappaport (6) first described what he called “The Grandparent Syndrome.” He defined the syndrome as the develop- ment of detrimental and grotesque character traits brought about by the identification with the grandparent.
Even if menopause is truly ancient, some detractors of the Grandmother Hypothesis point to the health perils of a woman's post-fertile years to argue that this stage of life is not adaptive—maintaining that postmenopausal womanhood did not result from the selection of inherited beneficial traits over time.
The paper is titled “The active grandparent hypothesis: Physical activity and the evolution of extended human healthspans and lifespans.” It posits that modern-day Westerners engage in much less physical activity than earlier humans, and that this “mismatch” leads to many chronic diseases once rare in humans.
The horrible thought she had had before the accident was that the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee. The narrator reveals the grandmother's first thoughts after the car accident.
A narcissist is similar to a toxic grandparent who can switch and become manipulative, mean, and passive aggressive when she doesn't get what she wants. She may also have a tendency to be vain, envious, and self-centered. This can make family interactions more draining and frustrating.
Ignore your family values and rules. Control with money—gifts, dinners, vacations, memberships, etc. Play favorites and scapegoats between siblings. Play favorites and scapegoats between sibling families.
Narcissistic grandparents are not harmless. A toxic grandparent has an over-inflated ego, a pathetic need for validation, and a tragic lack of empathy for other people's feelings. This need includes people closest to them—their own family.
The grandmother hypothesis is an adaptationist hypothesis suggesting the extended human female postmenopausal life span is explainable by kin selection. Grandmothers who provide alloparental care to their grandchildren are suggested to increase their fitness.
By relieving a mother of some of her child-raising responsibilities, so the thinking goes, grandmothers make it easier for their daughters to have more children and also make it possible for those children to have longer lives by helping them during the difficult early years of life.
Toxic grandparents may set inappropriate boundaries or overstep ones that have been set, likely by the grandchild's parents. They may call excessively, drop by unannounced, or circumvent rules the parents have set to protect the child.
Many children raised by grandparents were referred for clinical treatment due to problems with concentration, hyperactivity, depression, oppositional-defiant behavior, temper tantrums, mood swings, and social isolation (Edwards & Ray, 2008).
Studies have shown that kids with a high level of grandparent involvement tend to have less emotional problems, reduced behavioral issues, and fewer challenges with peers. In fact, healthy grandparent relationships lead to less depression in both grandparents and children.
The grandmother figure is archetypal. The wise old woman who, in fairy tales, folk myth and legends comes to the aid of the struggling heroine or hero. And to be sure, I, like any of my peers, have many times fulfilled the role of confidante or advisor in some private misfortune.
A golden child's sense of self and their personal boundaries are erased, as their own sense of identity is replaced with the need to live up to their role. Their behaviors and beliefs reflect what their parent expects of them, and they may feel incapable of individuation even in adulthood.
A narcissistic parent will often abuse the normal parental role of guiding their children and being the primary decision maker in the child's life, becoming overly possessive and controlling. This possessiveness and excessive control disempowers the child; the parent sees the child simply as an extension of themselves.
A narcissistic family structure will often be full of deceit, emotional abuse, and multiple forms of narcissistic manipulation. These dynamics are extremely dysfunctional and harmful for any family members involved, no matter their position or “role” in the family system.
To summarize, overparenting, lack of warmth, leniency, overvaluation and childhood maltreatment have all been associated with higher levels of narcissism. However, these parenting behaviours have often been examined in isolation or in different combinations, with mixed findings.
Narcissists also gaslight or practice master manipulation, weakening and destabilizing their victims; finally, they utilize positive and negative emotions or moments to trick others. When a narcissist can't control you, they'll likely feel threatened, react with anger, and they might even start threatening you.
We demonstrate that narcissism in children is cultivated by parental overvaluation: parents believing their child to be more special and more entitled than others. In contrast, high self-esteem in children is cultivated by parental warmth: parents expressing affection and appreciation toward their child.
The grandmother represents the stereotypical southern, Christian, domineering mother who is often hypocritical and two-faced. She is flawed and annoying from the start, and more than anyone else, is responsible for the family's dire predicament.
The unnamed grandmother in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” considers herself morally superior to others by virtue of her being a “lady,” and she freely and frequently passes judgment on others.
The grandmother decides she wants to go see the old plantation, but knows Bailey won't want this. So the grandmother's seems to be selfish, and tries to satisfy her selfishness by manipulating people.