Parent

Parent

A parent (from Latin: parēns = parent) is a caretaker of the offspring 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 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.

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Famous quotes containing the word parent:

    Being a parent is unlike any previous job—the results of any one action are not clearly visible for a long time, if at all.
    —Anonymous Mother. As quoted in Between Generations by Ellen Galinsky, ch. 2 (1981)

    I think that parents ought to get some idea of how the so- called “experts” have changed their advice over the decades, so that they won’t take them deadly seriously, and so that if the parent has the strong feeling, “I don’t like this advice,” the parent won’t feel compelled to follow it. . . . So don’t worry about trying to do a perfect job. There is no perfect job. There is no one way of raising your children.
    Benjamin Spock (b. 1903)

    It is a grand thing to rise in the world. The ambition to do so is the very salt of the earth. It is the parent of all enterprise, and the cause of all improvement.
    Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)