Editing Parent (section)

== Genetics ==

=== Parent–offspring conflict ===
{{Main article|Parent–offspring conflict}}

An offspring who hates their father is called a misopater, one that hates their mother is a misomater, while a parent that hates their offspring is a misopedist.<ref>Francis, Darryl. "Iatrologs and Iatronyms." Word Ways 4.2 (1971): 8.</ref><ref>Davies, Jon. "Imagining intergenerationality: Representation and rhetoric in the pedophile movie." GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 13.2 (2007): 369-385.</ref> Parent–offspring conflict describes the [[evolutionary conflict]] arising from differences in optimal [[fitness (biology)|fitness]] of parents and their [[offspring]]. While parents tend to maximize the number of offspring, the offspring can increase their fitness by getting a greater share of [[parental investment]] often by competing with their [[sibling]]s. The theory was proposed by [[Robert Trivers]] in 1974 and extends the more general [[Gene-centered view of evolution|selfish gene theory]] and has been used to explain many observed biological phenomena.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Trivers, R.L.|title=Parent–offspring conflict|doi=10.1093/icb/14.1.249 |jstor=3881986 |year=1974 |journal=Integrative and Comparative Biology |volume=14 |issue=1|pages=249–264|doi-access=free }}</ref> For example, in some [[bird]] species, although parents often lay two eggs and attempt to raise two or more young, the strongest fledgling takes a greater share of the food brought by parents and will often kill the weaker sibling, an act known as [[siblicide]].

===Empathy===
David Haig has argued that human [[fetus|fetal]] genes would be selected to draw more resources from the mother than it would be optimal for the mother to give, a hypothesis that has received empirical support. The [[placenta]], for example, secretes allocrine [[hormone]]s that decrease the sensitivity of the mother to [[insulin]] and thus make a larger supply of blood sugar available to the fetus. The mother responds by increasing the level of insulin in her bloodstream, the placenta has insulin receptors that stimulate the production of insulin-degrading [[enzyme]]s which counteract this effect.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Haig, D. |title=Genetic conflicts in human pregnancy |pmid=8115596 |jstor=3037249 |url=http://www.oeb.harvard.edu/faculty/haig/publications_files/93genetic%20conflicts%20in%20human%20pregnancy.pdf |year=1993 |volume=68 |issue=4 |pages=495–532 |journal=The Quarterly Review of Biology |doi=10.1086/418300 |s2cid=38641716 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130719154120/http://www.oeb.harvard.edu/faculty/haig/publications_files/93genetic%20conflicts%20in%20human%20pregnancy.pdf |archive-date=2013-07-19 }}</ref>