2024年考研英语一阅读 Text 2 原文翻译及答案解析

Parenting tips obtained from hunter-gatherers in Africa may be the key to bringing up more contented children, researchers have suggested. The idea is based on studies of communities such as the Kung of Botswana where each child is cared for by many adults. Kung children as young as four will help to look after younger ones and “baby-wearing”, in which infants are carried in slings, is considered the norm.

研究人员提出，从非洲狩猎采集者那里获得的育儿技巧可能是培养更满足孩子的关键。这一想法基于对博茨瓦纳的昆族等社区的研究，在那里每个孩子都由许多成年人照顾。昆族儿童年仅四岁就会帮助照顾更小的孩子，而且“婴儿背带”，即用吊带携带婴儿，被认为是常态。

According to Dr. Nikhil Chaudhary, an evolutionary anthropologist at Cambridge University, these practices, known as alloparenting, could lead to less anxiety for children and parents.

剑桥大学进化人类学家尼基尔·乔杜里博士表示，这些被称为“异亲养育”的做法可能减少儿童和父母的焦虑。

Dr. Annie Swanepoel, a child psychiatrist, believes that there are ways to incorporate them into western life. In Germany, one scheme has paired an old people's home with a nursery. The residents help to look after the children, an arrangement akin to alloparenting. Another measure could be encouraging friendships between children in different school years to mimic the supervised mixed-age play groups in hunter-gatherer communities.

儿童精神科医生安妮·斯瓦内普尔博士认为，有办法将这些做法融入西方生活。在德国，一个计划将养老院与托儿所配对。居民帮助照顾孩子，这种安排类似于异亲养育。另一项措施可能是鼓励不同学年儿童之间的友谊，以模仿狩猎采集社区中有监督的混合年龄游戏小组。

In a paper published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, researchers said that the western nuclear family was a recent invention which broke with evolutionary history. This abrupt shift to an “intensive mothering narrative” which suggests that mothers should manage child care alone, was likely to have been harmful. “Such narratives can lead to maternal exhaustion and have dangerous consequences,” they wrote.

在发表于《儿童心理学与精神病学杂志》的一篇论文中，研究人员表示，西方的核心家庭是近期发明，背离了进化历史。这种向“密集母职叙事”的突然转变——即母亲应独自管理育儿——可能有害。他们写道：“这类叙事可能导致母亲精疲力竭，并带来危险后果。”

By contrast, in hunter-gatherer societies adults other than the parents can provide almost half of a child's care. One previous study looked at the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It found that infants had an average of 14 alloparents a day by the time they were 18 weeks old and were passed between caregivers eight times an hour.

相比之下，在狩猎采集社会中，父母以外的成年人可以提供几乎一半的儿童照顾。先前一项研究考察了刚果民主共和国的人们。研究发现，婴儿在18周大时，平均每天有14个异亲照顾者，每小时在照顾者之间传递八次。

Chaudhary said that parents now had less child care support from family and social networks than during most of human evolutionary history, but introducing additional caregivers could reduce stress and maternal depression, which could have a “knock-on” benefit to a child's wellbeing. An infant born to a hunter-gatherer society could have more than ten caregivers - this contrasts starkly to a nursery setting in the UK where regulations call for a ratio of one carer to four children aged two to three.

乔杜里说，与人类进化史的大部分时期相比，父母现在从家庭和社会网络获得的育儿支持较少，但引入额外的照顾者可以减少压力和母亲抑郁症，这可能对孩子的健康产生“连锁”好处。在狩猎采集社会中出生的婴儿可能有超过十个照顾者——这与英国托儿所的设置形成鲜明对比，英国规定一名照顾者对应四名两到三岁的儿童。

While hunter-gatherer children learn from observation and imitation in mixed-age playgroups, researchers said that western “instructive teaching”, where pupils are asked to sit still, may contribute to conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Chaudhary said that Britain should explore the possibility that older siblings helping their parents might also enhance their own social development.

虽然狩猎采集儿童通过在混合年龄游戏小组中观察和模仿来学习，但研究人员表示，西方的“指导性教学”，即要求学生安静坐着，可能促成注意力缺陷多动障碍等情况。乔杜里说，英国应该探索年长兄弟姐妹帮助父母也可能增强他们自身社会发展的可能性。