Another Phrase for Grandmother could be Allomother

Leave it to the apes to explain what we know from our everyday experience. There is a review of Sarah Blaffers Hrdy's new book, Mothers and Others in Salon Magazine. She posits that the reason human females to go on living for so long after menopause is because of the special help and provisions that these old women could provide to younger kin, their younger daughters and nieces who were still reproducing. Pretty cool. Women have an important role to play in survival of the species after we are finished reproducing ourselves.