Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans

Doucleff reflects on her initial reaction to the different between Maya and Western parenting practices, comparing her own parenting experience to white-water rapids and Maya parenting to a “serene river.” Maya children, she notes, are particularly helpful. Doucleff was most taken by Angela, the pre-teen daughter of a woman named Maria, who woke up and immediately started cleaning without being asked. Maria explained that Angela was often helpful, and, when asked why she willingly contributed, Angela said she liked helping her family. Reflecting on the event made her see that she was not a bad mother but that she was missing critical parenting information. She connects this to the Müller-Lyer illusion in which two lines of equal length appear uneven due to the direction of arrows placed at the ends of the lines.

Doucleff discusses cross-cultural psychologists Joe Henrich and Steve Heine who collaborated with religion psychologist Ara Norenzayan to research the idea that North Americans are “weird” compared to other cultures. They noticed a significant Western bias in psychology, which is an issue because Western cultures are not accurately representative of humanity. The team created an acronym to describe the phenomenon—”WEIRD, for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic” (20).