Parent
Encyclopedia
Offspring
In biology, offspring is the product of reproduction, of a new organism produced by one or more parents.Collective offspring may be known as a brood or progeny in a more general way...
in their own species. In humans, a parent is of a child (where "child" refers to offspring, not necessarily age). Children can have one or more parents, but they must have two biological parents. Biological parents consist of the male who sired
Sexual reproduction
Sexual reproduction is the creation of a new organism by combining the genetic material of two organisms. There are two main processes during sexual reproduction; they are: meiosis, involving the halving of the number of chromosomes; and fertilization, involving the fusion of two gametes and the...
the child and the female who gave birth
Birth
Birth is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring. The offspring is brought forth from the mother. The time of human birth is defined as the time at which the fetus comes out of the mother's womb into the world...
to the child. In all human societies, the biological mother and father are both responsible for raising their young. However, some parents may not be biologically related to their children. An adoptive parent is one who nurtures and raises the offspring of the biological parents but is not actually biologically related to the child. Children without adoptive parents can be raised by their grandparents or other family members.
A parent can also be elaborated as an ancestor
Ancestor
An ancestor is a parent or the parent of an ancestor ....
removed one generation
Generation
Generation , also known as procreation in biological sciences, is the act of producing offspring....
.
Biological and non-biological parentage
Like mothers, fathers may be categorized according to their biological, social or legal relationship with the child. Historically, the biological relationship paternity has been determinative of fatherhood. However, proofEvidence (law)
The law of evidence encompasses the rules and legal principles that govern the proof of facts in a legal proceeding. These rules determine what evidence can be considered by the trier of fact in reaching its decision and, sometimes, the weight that may be given to that evidence...
of paternity has been intrinsically problematic and so social rules often determined who would be regarded as a father e.g. the husband of the mother.
Biological parents and parental testing
The term biological parent refers to a parent who is the biological mother or father of an individual. While an individual's parents are often also their biological parents, it is seldom used unless there is an explicit difference between who acted as a parent for that individual and the person from whom they inherit half of their geneGene
A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...
s. For example, a person whose father has remarried may call his new wife their step-mother 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.
Parental problems
A paternity test is conducted to prove paternity, that is, whether a man 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 childbirthChildbirth
Childbirth is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the birth of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus...
and pregnancy
Pregnancy
Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
, except in the case of a pregnancy involving embryo transfer
Embryo transfer
Embryo transfer refers to a step in the process of assisted reproduction in which embryos are placed into the uterus of a female with the intent to establish a pregnancy...
or egg donation, it is obvious who the mother
Mother
A mother, mum, mom, momma, or mama is a woman who has raised a child, given birth to a child, and/or supplied the ovum that grew into a child. Because of the complexity and differences of a mother's social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to specify a universally...
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
Earlobe
The human earlobe is composed of tough areolar and adipose connective tissues, lacking the firmness and elasticity of the rest of the pinna. Since the earlobe does not contain cartilage it has a large blood supply and may help to warm the ears and maintain balance. However earlobes are not...
s, the widow's peak
Widow's peak
A widow's peak is a distinct point in the hairline in the center of the forehead. This hair anomaly is a result of a lower-than-usual position of the intersection of the bilateral periorbital fields of hair-growth suppression on the forehead.-Definition:...
, or the cleft chin
Cleft chin
The terms cleft chin, chin cleft, butt chin, superhero chin, dimple chin, or a chin dimple refer to a dimple on the chin. It is a Y-shaped fissure on the chin with an underlying bony peculiarity...
, may serve as tentative indicators of (non-) parenthood as they are readily observable and inherited via autosomal-dominant
Dominance relationship
Dominance in genetics is a relationship between two variant forms of a single gene, in which one allele masks the effect of the other in influencing some trait. In the simplest case, if a gene exists in two allelic forms , three combinations of alleles are possible: AA, AB, and BB...
genes.
A more reliable way to ascertain parenthood is via DNA analysis (known as genetic fingerprinting
Genetic fingerprinting
DNA profiling is a technique employed by forensic scientists to assist in the identification of individuals by their respective DNA profiles. DNA profiles are encrypted sets of numbers that reflect a person's DNA makeup, which can also be used as the person's identifier...
of individuals, although older methods have included ABO blood group typing
Blood type
A blood type is a classification of blood based on the presence or absence of inherited antigenic substances on the surface of red blood cells . These antigens may be proteins, carbohydrates, glycoproteins, or glycolipids, depending on the blood group system...
, analysis of various other protein
Protein
Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...
s and enzyme
Enzyme
Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process, called substrates, are converted into different molecules, called products. Almost all chemical reactions in a biological cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates...
s, or using human leukocyte antigen
Human leukocyte antigen
The human leukocyte antigen system is the name of the major histocompatibility complex in humans. The super locus contains a large number of genes related to immune system function in humans. This group of genes resides on chromosome 6, and encodes cell-surface antigen-presenting proteins and...
s. The current techniques for paternity testing are using polymerase chain reaction
Polymerase chain reaction
The polymerase chain reaction is a scientific technique in molecular biology to amplify a single or a few copies of a piece of DNA across several orders of magnitude, generating thousands to millions of copies of a particular DNA sequence....
(PCR) and restriction fragment length polymorphism
Restriction fragment length polymorphism
In molecular biology, restriction fragment length polymorphism, or RFLP , is a technique that exploits variations in homologous DNA sequences. It refers to a difference between samples of homologous DNA molecules that come from differing locations of restriction enzyme sites, and to a related...
(RFLP). For the most part however, genetic fingerprinting has all but taken over all the other forms of testing.
Mother
A mother is a woman who has conceivedPregnancy
Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
, given birth
Childbirth
Childbirth is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the birth of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus...
to, or raised
Parenting
Parenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood...
a child
Child
Biologically, a child is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty. Some vernacular definitions of a child include the fetus, as being an unborn child. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority...
in the role of a parent. 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 male equivalent is a father
Father
A father, Pop, Dad, or Papa, is defined as a male parent of any type of offspring. The adjective "paternal" refers to father, parallel to "maternal" for mother...
.
Father
A father is defined as a maleMale
Male refers to the biological sex of an organism, or part of an organism, which produces small mobile gametes, called spermatozoa. Each spermatozoon can fuse with a larger female gamete or ovum, in the process of fertilization...
parent of any type of offspring. The adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
"paternal" refers to father, parallel to "maternal" for mother
Mother
A mother, mum, mom, momma, or mama is a woman who has raised a child, given birth to a child, and/or supplied the ovum that grew into a child. Because of the complexity and differences of a mother's social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to specify a universally...
. The verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
"to father" means to procreate or to sire a child from which also derives the gerund "fathering".
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 has a maximum of four geneGene
A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...
tic grandparents, eight genetic great-grandparents, sixteen genetic great-great-grandparents, etc. Rarely, such as in the case of sibling or half-sibling incest
Incest
Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
, these numbers are lower
Pedigree collapse
In genealogy, pedigree collapse describes how reproduction between two individuals who knowingly or unknowingly share an ancestor causes the number of distinct ancestors in the family tree of their offspring to be smaller than it could otherwise be. Robert C...
.
Parent–offspring conflict
Parent–offspring conflict describes the evolutionary conflict arising from differences in optimal fitnessFitness (biology)
Fitness is a central idea in evolutionary theory. It can be defined either with respect to a genotype or to a phenotype in a given environment...
of parents and their offspring
Offspring
In biology, offspring is the product of reproduction, of a new organism produced by one or more parents.Collective offspring may be known as a brood or progeny in a more general way...
. While parents tend to maximize the number of offspring, the offspring can increase their fitness by getting a greater share of parental investment
Parental investment
In evolutionary biology, parental investment is any parental expenditure that benefits one offspring at a cost to parents' ability to invest in other components of fitness...
often by competing with their sibling
Sibling
Siblings are people who share at least one parent. A male sibling is called a brother; and a female sibling is called a sister. In most societies throughout the world, siblings usually grow up together and spend a good deal of their childhood socializing with one another...
s. The theory was proposed by Robert Trivers
Robert Trivers
Robert L. Trivers is an American evolutionary biologist and sociobiologist and Professor of Anthropology and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University. Trivers is most noted for proposing the theories of reciprocal altruism , parental investment , facultative sex ratio determination , and...
in 1974 and extends the more general selfish gene theory
Gene-centered view of evolution
The gene-centered view of evolution, gene selection theory or selfish gene theory holds that evolution occurs through the differential survival of competing genes, increasing the frequency of those alleles whose phenotypic effects successfully promote their own propagation, with gene defined as...
and has been used to explain many observed biological phenomena. For example, in some bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
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
Siblicide
Siblicide is the killing of an infant individual by its close relatives . It may occur directly between siblings or be mediated by the parents. The evolutionary drivers may be either indirect benefits for the genetic viability of a population or direct benefits for the perpetrators...
.
David Haig has argued that human fetal
Fetus
A fetus is a developing mammal or other viviparous vertebrate after the embryonic stage and before birth.In humans, the fetal stage of prenatal development starts at the beginning of the 11th week in gestational age, which is the 9th week after fertilization.-Etymology and spelling variations:The...
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
Placenta
The placenta is an organ that connects the developing fetus to the uterine wall to allow nutrient uptake, waste elimination, and gas exchange via the mother's blood supply. "True" placentas are a defining characteristic of eutherian or "placental" mammals, but are also found in some snakes and...
, for example, secretes allocrine hormone
Hormone
A hormone is a chemical released by a cell or a gland in one part of the body that sends out messages that affect cells in other parts of the organism. Only a small amount of hormone is required to alter cell metabolism. In essence, it is a chemical messenger that transports a signal from one...
s that decrease the sensitivity of the mother to insulin
Insulin
Insulin is a hormone central to regulating carbohydrate and fat metabolism in the body. Insulin causes cells in the liver, muscle, and fat tissue to take up glucose from the blood, storing it as glycogen in the liver and muscle....
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 enzyme
Enzyme
Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process, called substrates, are converted into different molecules, called products. Almost all chemical reactions in a biological cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates...
s which counteract this effect.
Optimal gender mix
While a child has a biological fatherFather
A father, Pop, Dad, or Papa, is defined as a male parent of any type of offspring. The adjective "paternal" refers to father, parallel to "maternal" for mother...
and a biological mother
Mother
A mother, mum, mom, momma, or mama is a woman who has raised a child, given birth to a child, and/or supplied the ovum that grew into a child. Because of the complexity and differences of a mother's social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to specify a universally...
, not every family
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
is a traditional nuclear family
Nuclear family
Nuclear family is a term used to define a family group consisting of a father and mother and their children. This is in contrast to the smaller single-parent family, and to the larger extended family. Nuclear families typically center on a married couple, but not always; the nuclear family may have...
. There are many variants, such as adoption
Adoption
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting for another and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents...
, shared parenting
Shared parenting
Shared parenting refers to a collaborative arrangement in child custody or divorce determinations in which the care of the children is equal or more than substantially shared between the biological parents.- Nature and History :...
, step-families, and LGBT parenting
LGBT parenting
LGBT parenting refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people parenting one or more children. This includes children raised by same-sex couples , children raised by single LGBT parents, and children raised by an opposite-sex couple where at least one partner is LGBT.LGBT people can...
, 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
LGBT parenting
LGBT parenting refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people parenting one or more children. This includes children raised by same-sex couples , children raised by single LGBT parents, and children raised by an opposite-sex couple where at least one partner is LGBT.LGBT people can...
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.
See also
- Bateman's principleBateman's principleIn biology, Bateman's principle is the theory that females almost always invest more energy into producing offspring than males invest, and therefore in most species females are a limiting resource over which the other sex will compete...
– the theory that females almost always invest more energy into producing offspring than males, and that therefore in most species females are a limiting resource over which the other sex will compete. - Borderline parents
- Child abuseChild abuseChild abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...
- Cinderella effectCinderella EffectThe Cinderella effect is a term used by psychologists to describe the high incidence of stepchildren being physically abused, emotionally abused, sexually abused, neglected, murdered, or otherwise mistreated at the hands of their stepparents at significantly higher rates than at the hands of their...
- Egg and sperm donationSperm donationSperm donation is the provision by a man, , of his sperm, with the intention that it be used to impregnate a woman who is not usually the man's sexual partner, in order to produce a child....
- InfantInfantA newborn or baby is the very young offspring of a human or other mammal. A newborn is an infant who is within hours, days, or up to a few weeks from birth. In medical contexts, newborn or neonate refers to an infant in the first 28 days after birth...
- Narcissistic parentsNarcissistic parents"A narcissistic parent is typically exclusively and possessively close to his or her child... [and] may be especially envious of a child's growing independence."...
- Non-paternity eventNon-paternity eventNon-paternity event is a term in genetic genealogy and clinical genetics to describe the case where the biological father of a child is someone other than who it is presumed to be. The presumption may be either on the part of the presumed father or by the physician...
- Parental abuse by children
- Parental investmentParental investmentIn evolutionary biology, parental investment is any parental expenditure that benefits one offspring at a cost to parents' ability to invest in other components of fitness...
- ParentingParentingParenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood...
- Parents bullying teachers
- Paternal bondPaternal bondA paternal bond refers to the relationship between a father and his child. In the U.S., legal paternity is presumed for the husband of the mother unless a separate action is taken; an unmarried man may establish paternity by signing a voluntary recognition of paternity or by taking court action...
- Paternity (law)Paternity (law)In law, paternity is the legal acknowledgment of the parental relationship between a man and a child usually based on several factors.At common law, a child born to the wife during a marriage is the husband's child under the "presumption of legitimacy", and the husband is assigned complete rights,...
- Reciprocal socializationReciprocal socializationReciprocal socialization "is a socialization process that is bidirectional; children socialize parents just as parents socialize children". For example, the interaction of mothers and their infants is sometimes symbolized as a dance or dialogue in which following actions of the partners are...
- Surrogate mother
- Teachers bullying parents
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, afterschool, trends in education, tutoring, college, grants, etc. – A Roman Catholic view of the position of parents.