A parent is a caregiver of the
offspring in their own
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...
. In
humans, a parent is the caretaker of a
child
A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...
(where "child" refers to offspring, not necessarily age). A ''biological parent'' is a person whose
gamete resulted in a child, a male through the sperm, and a female through the ovum. Biological parents are
first-degree relatives and have 50% genetic meet. A
female can also become a parent through
surrogacy. Some parents may be
adoptive
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from ...
parents, who nurture and raise an offspring, but are not biologically related to the child.
Orphans without adoptive parents can be raised by their
grandparents or other
family members.
A parent can also be elaborated as an
ancestor
An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder or a forebear, is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). ''Ancestor'' is "any person from whom ...
removed one
generation. With recent medical advances, it is possible to have more than two biological parents. Examples of
third biological parents include instances involving surrogacy or a third person who has provided DNA samples during an assisted reproductive procedure that has altered the recipients' genetic material.
The most common types of parents are mothers, fathers, step-parents, and grandparents. A mother is, "a woman in relation to a child or children to whom she has given birth." The extent to which it is socially acceptable for a parent to be involved in their offspring's life varies from culture to culture, however one that exhibits too little involvement is sometimes said to exhibit
child neglect
A form of child abuse, child neglect is an act of caregivers (e.g., parents) that results in depriving a child of their basic needs, such as the failure to provide adequate supervision, health care, clothing, or housing, as well as other physica ...
, while one that is too involved is sometimes said to be
overprotective, cosseting,
nosey, or
intrusive.
Types
Biological
A person's biological parents are the persons from whom the individual inherits their
genes. The term is generally only used if there is a need to distinguish an individual's parents from their biological parents, For example, an individual whose father has remarried may call the father's new wife their
stepmother
A stepmother, stepmum or stepmom is a non-biological female parent married to one's preexisting parent.
A stepmother-in-law is a stepmother of one's spouse. Children from her spouse's previous unions are known as her stepchildren.
Culture
Step ...
and continue to refer to their mother normally, though someone who has had little or no contact with their biological mother may address their
foster parent as their mother, and their biological mother as such, or perhaps by her first name.
Mother
A mother is a female who has a maternal connection with another individual, whether arising from
conception, by giving
birth
Birth is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring, also referred to in technical contexts as parturition. In mammals, the process is initiated by hormones which cause the muscular walls of the uterus to contract, expelling the f ...
to, or
raising the individual in the role of a parent. More than one female may have such connections with an individual. Because of the complexity and differences of a mother's social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to define a mother to suit a universally accepted definition. The utilization of a surrogate mother may result in explication of there being two biological mothers.
Father
A father is a male parent of any type of offspring. It may be the person who shares in the raising of a child or who has provided the biological material, the
sperm
Sperm is the male reproductive cell, or gamete, in anisogamous forms of sexual reproduction (forms in which there is a larger, female reproductive cell and a smaller, male one). Animals produce motile sperm with a tail known as a flagellum, wh ...
, which results in the birth of the child.
Grandparent
Grandparents are the parents of a person's own parent, whether that be a father or a mother. Every sexually reproducing creature who is not a
genetic chimera
A genetic chimerism or chimera ( ) is a single organism composed of cells with more than one distinct genotype. In animals, this means an individual derived from two or more zygotes, which can include possessing blood cells of different blood ty ...
has a maximum of four
genetic grandparents, eight genetic
great-grandparents
Grandparents, individually known as grandmother and grandfather, are the parents of a person's father or mother – paternal or maternal. Every sexually-reproducing living organism who is not a genetic chimera has a maximum of four genetic gra ...
, sixteen genetic great-great-grandparents and so on. Rarely, such as in the case of sibling or half-sibling
incest, these
numbers are lower.
Paternity issues
A paternity test is conducted to prove paternity, that is, whether a male is the biological father of another individual. This may be relevant in view of
rights and duties of the father. Similarly, a maternity test can be carried out. This is less common, because at least during
childbirth and
pregnancy, except in the case of a pregnancy involving
embryo transfer or
egg donation, it is obvious who the
mother is. However, it is used in a number of events such as legal battles where a person's maternity is challenged, where the mother is uncertain because she has not seen her child for an extended period of time, or where deceased persons need to be identified.
Although not constituting completely reliable evidence, several
congenital traits such as attached
earlobe
The human earlobe (''lobulus auriculae''), the lower portion of the outer ear, is composed of tough areolar and adipose connective tissues, lacking the firmness and elasticity of the rest of the auricle (the external structure of the ear). In ...
s, a
widow's peak
A widow's peak is a V-shaped point in the hairline in the center of the forehead. Hair growth on the forehead is suppressed in a bilateral pair of periorbital fields. Without a widow's peak, these fields join in the middle of the forehead so as ...
, or the
cleft chin
The chin is the forward pointed part of the anterior mandible ( mental region) below the lower lip. A fully developed human skull has a chin of between 0.7 cm and 1.1 cm.
Evolution
The presence of a well-developed chin is considered to be one ...
, may serve as tentative indicators of (non-) parenthood as they are readily observable and inherited via
autosomal-dominant genes.
A more reliable way to ascertain parenthood is via DNA analysis (known as
genetic fingerprinting
DNA profiling (also called DNA fingerprinting) is the process of determining an individual's DNA characteristics. DNA analysis intended to identify a species, rather than an individual, is called DNA barcoding.
DNA profiling is a forensic tec ...
of individuals), although older methods have included
ABO blood group typing, analysis of various other
proteins and
enzymes, or using
human leukocyte antigen
The human leukocyte antigen (HLA) system or complex is a complex of genes on chromosome 6 in humans which encode cell-surface proteins responsible for the regulation of the immune system. The HLA system is also known as the human version of th ...
s. The current techniques for paternity testing are using
polymerase chain reaction
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a method widely used to rapidly make millions to billions of copies (complete or partial) of a specific DNA sample, allowing scientists to take a very small sample of DNA and amplify it (or a part of it) ...
and
restriction fragment length polymorphism. For the most part, however, genetic fingerprinting has all but taken over all the other forms of testing.
Roles and responsibilities
Guardianship
A legal guardian is a person who has the legal authority (and the corresponding duty) to care for the personal and property interests of another person, called a ward. Guardians are typically used in three situations: guardianship for an incapacitated senior (due to old age or infirmity), guardianship for a minor, and guardianship for
developmentally disabled adults.
Most countries and states have laws that provide that the parents of a minor child are the legal guardians of that child, and that the parents can designate who shall become the child's legal guardian in the event of death, subject to the approval of the court. Some jurisdictions allow a parent of a child to exercise the authority of a legal guardian without a formal court appointment. In such circumstances the parent acting in that capacity is called the natural guardian of that parent's child.
Parenting
Parenting
Parenting or child rearing promotes and supports the physical, emotional, social, spiritual and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood. Parenting refers to the intricacies of raising a child and not exclusively for a bio ...
or child rearing is the process of promoting and supporting the
physical,
emotional, social, financial, and
intellectual development
Cognitive development is a field of study in neuroscience and psychology focusing on a child's development in terms of information processing, conceptual resources, perceptual skill, language learning, and other aspects of the developed adult bra ...
of a
child
A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...
from
infancy to
adult
An adult is a human or other animal that has reached full growth. In human context, the term ''adult'' has meanings associated with social and legal concepts. In contrast to a " minor", a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of major ...
hood. Parenting refers to the aspects of raising a child aside from the biological relationship.
Gender and gender mix
A child has at least one biological
father
A father is the male parent of a child. Besides the paternal bonds of a father to his children, the father may have a parental, legal, and social relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations. An adoptive fath ...
and at least one biological
mother, but not every
family is a traditional
nuclear family. There are many variants, such as
adoption
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from ...
,
shared parenting,
stepfamilies, and
LGBT parenting, over which there has been controversy.
The social science literature rejects the notion that there is an optimal gender mix of parents or that children and adolescents with
same-sex parents suffer any developmental disadvantages compared with those with two opposite-sex parents.
The professionals and the major associations now agree there is a well-established and accepted consensus in the field that there is no optimal gender combination of parents. The family studies literature indicates that it is family processes (such as the quality of parenting and relationships within the family) that contribute to determining children's well-being and "outcomes," rather than family structures, per se, such as the number, gender, sexuality and co-habitation status of parents.
Genetics
Parent–offspring conflict
An offspring who hates their father is called a misopater, one that hates their mother is a misomater, while a parent that hates their offspring is a misopedist. Parent–offspring conflict describes the
evolutionary conflict arising from differences in optimal
fitness of parents and their
offspring. While parents tend to maximize the number of offspring, the offspring can increase their fitness by getting a greater share of
parental investment often by competing with their
sibling
A sibling is a relative that shares at least one parent with the subject. A male sibling is a brother and a female sibling is a sister. A person with no siblings is an only child.
While some circumstances can cause siblings to be raised separat ...
s. The theory was proposed by
Robert Trivers
Robert Ludlow "Bob" Trivers (; born February 19, 1943) is an American evolutionary biologist and sociobiologist. Trivers proposed the theories of reciprocal altruism (1971), parental investment (1972), facultative sex ratio determination (1973), ...
in 1974 and extends the more general
selfish gene theory
With gene defined as "not just one single physical bit of DNA utall replicas of a particular bit of DNA distributed throughout the world", the gene-centered view of evolution, gene's eye view, gene selection theory, or selfish gene theory hol ...
and has been used to explain many observed biological phenomena. For example, in some
bird species, although parents often lay two eggs and attempt to raise two or more young, the strongest fledgling takes a greater share of the food brought by parents and will often kill the weaker sibling, an act known as
siblicide.
Empathy
David Haig has argued that human
fetal genes would be selected to draw more resources from the mother than it would be optimal for the mother to give, a hypothesis that has received empirical support. The
placenta, for example, secretes allocrine
hormones that decrease the sensitivity of the mother to
insulin and thus make a larger supply of blood sugar available to the fetus. The mother responds by increasing the level of insulin in her bloodstream, the placenta has insulin receptors that stimulate the production of insulin-degrading
enzymes which counteract this effect.
Having children and happiness
In Europe, parents are generally happier than non-parents. In women, happiness increases after the first child, but having higher-order children is not associated with further increased well-being. Happiness seems to increase most in the year before and after the first childbirth.
See also
References
External links
National Educational Network, Inc. (NENI)– free online resources for parent education, curriculum. They also have a parent blog with information about child care, after-school, trends in education, tutoring, college, grants, etc.
* – A
Roman Catholic view of the position of parents.
{{Authority control
Family
Motherhood
Fatherhood
Infancy
Positions of authority