They say it takes a village to raise a child, and in some societies around the world, that is quite literally the case. Within civilizations made out of hunter-gatherers, the practices for raising children and caring for the elderly are far different than in the developed world in the West. But there may be lessons to be learned from these traditional societies.
“There have been humans for six million years… They brought up their children in different ways, they treated their old people in different ways,” says Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jared Diamond. “We can learn from those six million years of human history how to do things we care about, such as bringing up children, confronting danger, and growing old.”
Jared Diamond has spent nearly 50 years studying culture and civilizations in Papua New Guinea. His latest book is called, “The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?”