Parent

"Under the Horse Chestnut Tree" by Mary Cassatt, drypoint and aquatint print, 1898.

A parent (from Latin: parēns = parent) is a caretaker of the offspring in their own species. In
humans, a parent is the mother or the father figure of a child (NOTE: "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 the child and the female who gave birth
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.

Biological vs. non-biological parentage

Like mothers, fathers may be categorised according to their biological, social or legal
relationship with the child. Historically, the biological relationship paternity has been
determinative of fatherhood. However, proof 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 genes. For example, a person whose father has
remarried may call his new wife their stepmother 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 testing

Main article: Parental testing

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 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
earlobes, the widow's peak, or the cleft chin, 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 of individuals, although older methods have included ABO blood group typing,
analysis of various other proteins and enzymes, or using HLA antigens. The current techniques
for paternity testing are using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction fragment length
polymorphism (RFLP). For the most part however, genetic fingerprinting has all but taken over
all the other forms of testing.

Mother
Main article: Mother

Father
Main article: Father

Grandmother
Main article: Grandmother

Grandfather
Main article: Grandfather

Parent-offspring conflict
Main article: Parent-offspring conflict

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 siblings. The theory was proposed by Robert Trivers in 1974 and extends
the more general selfish gene theory and has been used to explain many observed biological
phenomena.[1] 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.

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, an 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.[2]

Optimal gender mix

While a child has a biological father and a mother, not every family is a traditional nuclear
family. There are many variants, such as adoption, shared parenting, step families, 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.[3][4] 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.[5] 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.[