Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-04-24
Source: The Conversation – in French– By Libby Ware, PhD, Biological Anthropology, Université de Montréal
Whether you have searched for them or not, you have probably come across content creators on parenting on social networks at one time or anotherover the last two decades.
In the comments section, you have likely seen parents being praised for their parenting methods. And you have probably also noticed many disagreements, from“mom-shaming”or criticisms of parenting styles.
The “gentle parenting” — an approach based on empathy aimed at raising confident children through understanding and respect — has, for example, experienced a resurgence in popularity. And then, as expected, it was followed byacerbic criticisms.
Most often, children’s education is presented as achoice between fixed styles, but research findings on primates suggest that effective education is flexible and adapts to the context.
Children’s education is more complex than these categories
According to Diana Baumrind, an influential American clinical and developmental psychologist,There are three main parenting styles in humans:the authoritative, the authoritarian, and the permissive.
The authoritative approach is characterized by great parental warmth and strict discipline, the authoritarian approach by low parental warmth and strict discipline, and the permissive approach by great parental warmth and lax discipline.
Humans, however, are far from being the only animals to raise their young. Non-human primates have varied parental approaches, and researchers have turned to our closest relatives to understand how parental care adapts according to environments.
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Maternal care strategies in primates vary frompermissive and protective, just like human parenting styles.
Primiparous mothers devote moreof energy and time to feed, to be with, and, generally, to take care of their offspring, from early childhood to independence, more than males do. This reflects traditional family roles according to patriarchal norms among humans.
Similarities also appear in the way that human and non-human primate mothers sometimes adapt their parenting to better meet the needs and environment of their offspring.
Evolution favors reactive parenting
In a recent study conducted by psychologists and primatologistsComparing humans and captive bonobos, gibbons, and siamangs, researchers discovered that, in all the species studied, mothers adapted their behavior to the potential risks to which their offspring were exposed.
They also adapted their approach based on age, generally reducing protective behaviors and increasing certain permissive behaviors as children grew older. Imagine, for example, this scenario: your child becomes a teenager and is allowed a later curfew (increased permissiveness) and is permitted to spend the night at friends’ houses (reduced protection). This would correspond to the authoritative approach.
It is interesting to note that protective care was more significant both in humans and bonobos. This similarity can be explained by ourcommon genetics (about 99%). Permissiveness can involve more risks, depending on the environment.
The flexibility of maternal care among different primate species suggests that child-rearing is not as simple as choosing a single style or approach. Adapting along the axes of permissiveness and protection, as well as according to levels of warmth and involvement, seems to be the key to effective parenting with the best outcomes.
What seems to work best is the ability to adapt according to the context. This flexibility also extends to other people who take care of the children, including fathers, whose role has often been underestimated.
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What research says about fathers
Paternal care is present in primates, butrare in other mammals. This is another reason why non-human primates and humans constitute a more comparable model for parental care than other animals.
Fathers play an important role in the survival of offspring in marmosets, tamarins, titi monkeys, and owl monkeys, as well as in some lemurs and siamangs.This role often manifests itself through grooming, support during confrontations and protection against infanticide.
It is common for adults, particularly males, to be aggressive towards the young members of the group. In many species, this is a form of socialization aimed at teaching the young their place within the social hierarchy. This phenomenon is more frequent in stricter social hierarchies, such as in chimpanzees, and can evolve the role of males towards an authoritarian category.
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It is well established that parenting styles and parental involvement have an influence onchildren. While many studies on mammals focus on the influence of the mother,a study on marmosetshas revealed that during the first 30 weeks of life, the presence of the father can improve both the chances of survival and the growth of the offspring.
These results also apply to fathers with multiple offspring and constitute one of the first proofs demonstrating this phenomenon in wild marmosets. These animals form lasting pairs and are largely monogamous, which makes their social model all the more comparable to ours.
These results are consistent withstudies in humans showing the importance of fatherhoodon children’s health. This is a parallel between the care provided by primates and human parenting styles that encourage paternal involvement, an aspect that has long been neglected.
The involvement of males in education challenges preconceived notions about the importance of fathers in non-human animals. Fathers clearly play a role in the success of their offspring into adulthood.
Thus, if the education of children is fundamentally adaptive, debates about the ideal parenting style may be less useful than we think. This has implications for the culture of parental advice and the way we design support systems.
Libby Ware does not work for, advise, own shares in, receive funds from any organization that could benefit from this article, and has declared no other affiliation than her research institution.
–ref. The way primates raise their young can inspire human parents –https://theconversation.com/how-primates-raise-their-young-can-inspire-human-parents-281276