When I was researching my book on how to take care of your emotional health as a mother, the one word that came up time and again was support. That old African proverb ?It takes a village to raise a child? is right. This is not a solitary endeavour, nor was it ever meant to be. If you need proof, let me kick a little evolutionary science your way.

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How to build a village Here?s how the math of raising a human breaks down among people still living as hunter-gatherers?much as our ancestors must have when humans were evolving, according to anthropologist Sarah Hrdy, PhD, author of Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding. A child needs to consume thirteen million calories between the day he is born and when he becomes an adult and is able to provide for himself. Since the time between births tends to be shorter in humans than in other apes (close to three to four years), mothers will give birth to a new infant long before her older offspring are anywhere near independence. In fact, the peak nutritional demands for brain development occur around four to five years old, just as mothers would be nursing a new?and very dependent?baby. That means well before a child is able to feed him or herself, his mother will be busy breas...