Parent can mean progenitor, caregiver, or legal guardian
A parent may be the biological progenitor of offspring or, in human contexts, an adoptive or foster caregiver with legal duties. Medicine now allows more than two genetic contributors in rare assisted cases, complicating older two-parent templates.
Common types include mothers, fathers, step-parents, and grandparents acting in loco parentis. Biological parents are those from whom a person inherits genes—a distinction invoked mainly when social and genetic parenthood diverge. Maternal connection can arise from conception, birth, or ongoing care.
Parents are first-degree relatives who share half their genes with a child. Going back further, anyone who is not a genetic chimaera has at most four genetic grandparents, eight great-grandparents and sixteen great-great-grandparents. Paternity tests settle whether a man is the biological father; visible inherited traits such as attached earlobes, a widow's peak or a cleft chin hint at the answer but are unreliable, and modern labs use DNA analysis through polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism rather than older ABO blood typing. In law, parents are normally a minor's guardians and may name a successor guardian, subject to court approval.
Social science literature as of 2011 largely rejects the idea that children need a particular gender mix of parents or fare worse with same-sex parents. English even has words for family hatred: a misopater hates their father, a misomater their mother, and a misopedist their offspring. Biologists describe parent-offspring conflict, and David Haig argued that fetal genes are selected to pull more resources from the mother than suits her, with the placenta releasing hormones that reduce her insulin sensitivity to raise blood sugar for the fetus. In Europe parents tend to be happier than non-parents, with the biggest boost in the year before and after a first birth.
Source: Parent
