Parent is a father or mother. There are two types of parents, biological parents and social parents. A child’s biological parents are the man and woman who physically produce the baby. They are responsible for the genetic and physical characteristics that the child inherits. The child’s social parents—who may not be the same as his or her biological parents—are the ones who raise the child. This article discusses social parents.
The role of parents
is to provide care, love, and training for their children. Children must have years of physical care, including food, shelter, and protection from harm. Love and affection are also necessary to promote healthy growth and development. This should come from those with whom the children can develop a lasting attachment. Children who receive insufficient individual attention or love often experience problems forming and maintaining personal relationships later in life. They may also fail to develop normally in other cognitive (mental), social, and emotional aspects of life, even with appropriate physical care.
Parents play a major role in a process called socialization, by which children learn to function independently in society. For example, parents train their youngsters to speak, to dress themselves, and to perform other basic activities. By identifying with the parent of the same sex, girls and boys learn how they are expected to think and behave as adult females or males—a process called gender role socialization.
Children are born with great individual differences in intelligence, physical ability, and temperament, and so they vary greatly in talent, personality, and other characteristics. Although parents greatly influence a child’s development, they are not completely responsible for his or her attributes. Other influences, over which parents have little control, also affect a child’s attitudes and development. These influences include friends and peers, teachers, and the media.
Changes in parenthood
have resulted from the many scientific, economic, and social changes during the last 200 years. Before the 1800’s, parents expected their children to perform many adult tasks by the age of 6 or 7. During the 1800’s, most children became independent and self-supporting as teen-agers. Today, parents are typically involved in their children’s lives until they reach early adulthood, around the ages of 18 to 25.
People today have greater freedom than ever before in deciding whether to become parents. Modern birth control methods allow couples to choose how many children, if any, they wish to have and when to have them. Also, scientists have developed techniques that permit women to bear children much later in life than ever before.
Another change is that greater numbers of women have entered the work force. Many decide to work because of financial need or to achieve freedom from the traditional roles of child rearing and housework. In industrialized countries, most mothers of young children work outside the home. This trend has increased the need for child care services and led to changes in the tasks traditionally performed by mothers and fathers (see Day care ). Many fathers are now adopting a more active role in caring for their children and homes.
In the past, young parents got help and instruction in child rearing from their own parents or other relatives. Today, few families in industrialized countries have an extra adult who shares parental responsibility. The number of single parents has also increased due to increasing divorce rates and other factors. These changes have created a need both for information about raising children and for parental support. These needs account for the popularity of child-care books, parent education groups or courses, and family support programs.
