Aparent is either theprogenitor of achild or, inhumans, it can refer to a caregiver orlegal guardian, generally called anadoptive parent orstep-parent. Parents who are progenitors arefirst-degree relatives and have 50% genetic meet. Afemale can also become a parent throughsurrogacy. Some parents may beadoptive parents, who nurture and raise an offspring, but are not related to the child.Orphans without adoptive parents can be raised by theirgrandparents or otherfamily members.
A parent can also be elaborated as anancestor removed onegeneration. With recent medical advances, it is possible to have more than two biological parents.[1][2][3] Examples ofthird 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.[4]
The most common types of parents aremothers,fathers,step-parents, andgrandparents. A mother is "a woman in relation to a child or children to whom she has given birth."[5] 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 exhibitchild neglect,[6] while one that is too involved is sometimes said to beoverprotective, cosseting,nosey, orintrusive.[7]
A person's biological parents are the persons from whom the individual inherits theirgenes. The term is generally only used if there is a need to distinguish an individual's foster parents from their biological parents, For example, an individual whose father has remarried may call the father's new wife theirstepmother and continue to refer to their mother normally, though someone who has had little or no contact with their biological mother may address theirfoster parent as their mother, and their biological mother as such, or perhaps by her first name.[citation needed]
A mother is a female who has a maternal connection with another individual, whether arising fromconception, by givingbirth to, orraising the individual in the role of a parent.[8] 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.[9]
Timothy L. Pesto and Kaitlyn E. Pesto play football as their father watches, Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
A father is a male parent of any type of offspring.[10] It may be the person who shares in the raising of a child or who has provided the biological material, thesperm, which results in the birth of the child.
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 agenetic chimera has a maximum of fourgenetic grandparents, eight geneticgreat-grandparents, sixteen genetic great-great-grandparents and so on. Rarely, such as in the case of sibling or half-siblingincest, thesenumbers are lower.
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 ofrights and duties of the father. Similarly, a maternity test can be carried out. This is less common, because at least duringchildbirth andpregnancy, except in the case of a pregnancy involvingembryo transfer oregg donation, it is obvious who themother 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, severalcongenital traits such as attachedearlobes, awidow's peak, or thecleft chin, may serve as tentative indicators of (non-) parenthood as they are readily observable and inherited viaautosomal-dominant genes.
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 fordevelopmentally 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.
The social science literature rejects the notion that there is an optimal gender mix of parents or that children and adolescents withsame-sex parents suffer any developmental disadvantages compared with those with two opposite-sex parents.[12][13] 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.[14] 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.[13]
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.[15][16] Parent–offspring conflict describes theevolutionary conflict arising from differences in optimalfitness of parents and theiroffspring. While parents tend to maximize the number of offspring, the offspring can increase their fitness by getting a greater share ofparental investment often by competing with theirsiblings. The theory was proposed byRobert Trivers in 1974 and extends the more generalselfish gene theory and has been used to explain many observed biological phenomena.[17] For example, in somebird 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 assiblicide.
David Haig has argued that humanfetal 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. Theplacenta, for example, secretes allocrinehormones that decrease the sensitivity of the mother toinsulin 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-degradingenzymes which counteract this effect.[18]
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.[19]
^Francis, Darryl. "Iatrologs and Iatronyms." Word Ways 4.2 (1971): 8.
^Davies, Jon. "Imagining intergenerationality: Representation and rhetoric in the pedophile movie." GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 13.2 (2007): 369-385.
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.
