Why do we gravitate more toward our maternal family than our paternal family?

Cerdanyola del VallèsBetween four and six in the afternoon, while his parents are still working, Luca Azañón typically spends time with his maternal grandparents during the week. They pick him up from daycare, have snacks and play together at home, and go to the park or shopping. When his two-and-a-half-year-old son falls ill, Hilario and Jacinta also take care of him. His parents, Carlos and Miriam, point out that the grandparents' role "is essential" in being able to manage everything, especially when his work shifts change and he has to call on his in-laws to care for the child. "My shifts rotate, so if we didn't have their support, maybe I should ask to be transferred to another department where the shifts were more consistent," Carlos acknowledges. Beyond being a vital resource when it comes to balancing work and family life, the grandparents and grandson also enjoy leisure time and free time with the rest of the family.

This bond is furthered by the fact that Hilario and Jacinta live in the same municipality as Miriam and Carlos, Cerdanyola del Vallès, but also by the close relationship that parents and daughter have always had. "I have a daily relationship with my parents and my brother; we talk every day," Miriam notes. The relationship is so close that in the case of Miriam's nephews (her brother's children), it's also their parents who lend a hand. In this case, the widespread idea that children normally have more of a relationship with their maternal family than their paternal family would be invalidated. "I think the attitude of each family and each person has a lot of influence, as well as the bond that exists before becoming parents," notes Carlos, who also acknowledges that his family is more distant. "In fact, I doubt that if I had been a woman, my relationship with my family would be closer," he adds.

Factors for and against

Carlos is also clear that if his father, who currently lives in Tarragona, lived closer, "he wouldn't take care of the child or see him more often." However, contact with Grandpa Juan via phone and video calls is frequent, and Luca often invites him despite not seeing him as much. Visits from Carlos, Miriam, and Luca on weekends and during vacations are, however, common, and during the time they spend together, grandfather and grandson show a great deal of complicity. "Of course," Carlos clarifies, "it's never just the two of them; we've always been there," he confesses. Carlos describes his father as "a man of the old school, who only worked," and therefore, he points out, "raising a small child doesn't come naturally to him." "My father doesn't either, eh?" exclaims Miriam, who points out that Hilario likes to play with Luca, but that his mother takes care of most of the childcare.

The truth is that behind a distant relationship between grandparents and grandchildren, there are often factors such as distance or the fact that the grandparents are still working and don't have as much time, but it can also happen that the father or mother are the first to neglect the relationship with their parents or that the grandparents themselves don't have much interest in being present. In the opinion of psychologist Silvia Guillamón, these factors can become sources of tension, which is why she recommends "recognizing the real limits such as distance and work hours and accepting them without guilt, and differentiating expectations, given that not all grandparents want or can assume the same level of involvement."

How the bond is built

That said, the director of the El Árbol psychology center points out that the fact that there is usually greater proximity to the maternal branch is explained by the fact that, in many families, it has traditionally been women—mothers, grandmothers, or aunts—who have assumed the role of emotional regulators and mediators of bonds. "They are the ones who usually encourage contact, organize get-togethers, and convey to their children the importance of maintaining relationships with their own parents and siblings," says Guillamón. This pattern, established since childhood, she continues, "is internalized and unconsciously reproduced in adulthood," which explains why sons and daughters "tend to perceive their maternal family as closer because it was their mother who facilitated and legitimized their bond."

Pili, a fictitious name, is about to retire. When she does, if all goes well, her daughter will have already given birth, and Pili plans to dedicate part of her time to helping her daughter and caring for her grandson. It will be the second cleanse, but he admits that his first granddaughter didn't enjoy it much during the first few years. "She's my son's daughter and it was the maternal grandmother who took the most care of herself. The truth is that she, my son's wife, was more supportive of her family and I was cautious, I didn't want to get involved. However, now that she's separated I see her much more because I help my son on the days when the daughter's time comes. "Whether you like it or not, being the grandmother of your son's children is not the same as being the grandmother of your daughter's," she admits.

Despite being able to think that the biological link is what explains the relationship of a mother with her immediate family and, therefore, why her children spend more time with her than with their in-laws, what the anthropological discipline says is that kinship relationships have little to do with genetics and biology. Bruna Álvarez, researcher with the AFIN group and research associate at the Department of Anthropology at the UAB, points out that there are cultures in which these relationships are formed in other ways. "We think that we are related to those with whom we We share genetic ties, but in our society there are also many cases where we don't: you can be the mother of a child gestated by another woman, as in the case of adoptions; or of one who doesn't carry my eggs, in the case of egg donation." The fact that it builds kinship, therefore, "is social in nature and is not universal, because in many other places in the world and other cultures they construct it differently."

Imaginaries and social expectations

"It's true that the moment of childbirth and from the moment the child is born is traditionally a time of solidarity between women, but that's also part of certain imaginaries and it hasn't always been that way," says Álvarez, for whom another of those imaginaries is what predicts that "this mother-daughter relationship is one of intimacy and trust, when it may or may not be." Here it's again a question of expectations and, the anthropologist emphasizes, "it could be that your own mother was very supportive of you at a time when you have a child, but it could be that she wasn't, and here there's a dissociation between what is a social expectation of what the mother-daughter relationship should perhaps be and a context. Contemporary family practices, adds Álvarez, "do not seem to necessarily imply that this good relationship with the maternal family is linked to this first stage of the baby's life."

The researcher is also not so sure that the maternal family will always be drawn to: "It is possible that this idea of family relationships arises from the sexual division within the family and at work, where women stayed home to take care of the family." But now, she points out, family diversity is so broad that there can be families very far apart, or single mothers, or couples with children from previous relationships, among other situations. In the anthropologist's words, this entire family universe right now is so diverse "that it's difficult to even maintain the idea that the mother will always gravitate toward the maternal grandmother," and adds: "Because perhaps now children have up to eight grandparents, if the parents of their parents' new partners also count as grandparents, so it's a matter of the people between them." A willingness that Carlos anticipates Miriam will show when it comes to getting involved in the daily lives of her future grandchildren, despite being the children's paternal grandmother. "Because of the way she was raised, she will be on the side of the child, I know it," he assures.