Parenting is caring for a vulnerable child. A vulnerable child is who is dependent on another individual for its survival, safety, and basic needs, notwithstanding having no control of the environment that they live it. Parenting can be an individual’s choice, or it can take two people to parent a child or children. In most healthcare settings, the term parenting has been ascribed to caregivers who may or may not be the biological parents of the child. In any case, the people, although not blood related and are still performing the role of parenting are also, legally and culturally referred to as parents. They include people such as surrogates, a legal guardian, a family friend, or even a relative.
Parenting is the choice that two people make to bring another life into earth and to nurture and protect it. However, in modern-day society, parenting is not only restricted to heterosexual partners as in recent years, but the LGBT community has also made tremendous strides towards their inclusion in general parenting. Also, orphaned children receive parenting care from foster homes, orphanages, or are even adopted to receive paternal care, particularly in the wake of the rife divorce in the US.
The origin of parenting stems from Freud Sigmund’s and other early psychologists such as Vygotsky, who, together with the plethora of modern-day research as brought forth child development theories that sought to explain child development. Among these theories, a common tenet is that parenting should cover the emotional, physical, social, and intellectual needs of the child. Sometimes parenting may be disrupted by divorce, which for the most part, is fuelled by a host of social, cultural, personal, and natural factors. In this case, what this means is that parenting may be disrupted, although not fully as parents can always make court arrangements to visit and take care of their children. For instance, in a family where one parent depends on substance abuse, neglect of the parenting roles may prompt child services to legally terminate the parenting services of the parent to the child. The issue may take a court approach if it is deemed that the child has been receiving poor parenting from the parents. Negative or bad parenting has detrimental effects on the healthy development of a child. Further, modern-day psychological theories posit the need for a positive child-parent relationship.
Parenting styles differ from person to person, state to state, and as such, are bound to the social, economic, and cultural confines of a particular society. Further, research shows that parental history, which comprises attachment and varying qualities of care is dependent on the society upon which a person is raised. The parental investment theory posits that the fundamental theories that comprise the male and female input into parenting a child lead to gender differences and even impact an individual’s preference and mating. .