Similarities and Differences between Animal
And Human Parents
How can we decide who is the best parent? Is it the way threat their kids, or is it the reason behind it? Parents are the most important people in our lives. They are with us from the start of our lives until the end of their lives. They help us make decisions and comfort us whenever we need someone to talk to. They are with us after our first breakup and they are with us in our wedding. They make our sad moments happier and happy moments even more enjoyable. However, this doesn’t work with every parent. In animals it can be different in many ways. Also it can be similar since there are various kinds of animals which have behaviors similar to human beings. In this essay the ways animal and human parents treat their kids will be compared and contrasted in four sections; the limitations parents put on their kids, the time period the parents take care of their kids, the precautions parents use to protect their kids and the things that the parents teach to their kids.
Firstly, limitations parents apply on their kids are alike in humans and most of the animals. These days, humans usually use restrictions to make their kids spend less time on the Internet. However it hasn’t always been like this. Humans were a kind of animal many years ago when they’d just evolved from primates and they applied the same limitations instinctively like any other animal. For example, they didn’t let their kids to get closer to the edge of a mountain or a river. On the other hand, animal parents usually apply one important restriction; “stay close”. This rule can be different in various situations, for example if there isn’t anything dangerous nearby, the parent would most possibly let them free for a while. There are also some animal parents who don’t use any restrictions because they are not with them. For example, snakes lay their eggs and nearly never see their kids in their lifetime. However, that has a pretty good reason. The baby snakes aren’t born full of love to their parents and they have enough poison to kill them in one bite, so it is clever to stay away from them. Although, there are animal parents who don’t take care of their children, most of both human and animal parents use restrictions to make their kids’ lives better.
Secondly, the time period of parents taking care of their kids can change between human and animal parents. Humans usually have a relationship with their kids as a family until one of the family member’s death. However, if we think the time that the parents take care of their kids, it is usually about 18 years, or when the kid becomes an adult and moves to his own house. Meanwhile, animals take care of their kids for different amount of time according to their species. For example, mammals usually take care of their kids for averagely 2 years. Also, the mammals who live in herds keep the young females in the herd for the rest of their lives but the alpha male gets rid of the male ones when they get older since they are a threat for the alpha male’s dominance. However, there are some species that don’t take care of their kids which are reptiles and fish. Reptiles usually don’t take care of their kids except some types of crocodiles and fish just lay their eggs and go away but there is also an exception for fish as well since red coral fish protect their babies by keeping them in their mouth until the babies reach a certain size.
Thirdly, the ways that human and animal parents use to protect their kids are mostly different from each other. Humans don’t actually have a lot of different ways to protect their kids from physical dangers but they have developed various ways to protect them mentally. They can calm their kids down and help them when they have a problem which makes them sad. Animals, on the other side, are mostly developed to protect them physically and have instincts that are programmed this way. For example, when a new male lion becomes the alpha male, it kills the previous alpha’s babies. The mother of these lions will fight with this new alpha or even help the previous one stay the alpha by joining the fight between these two males. Another simple example for animals protecting their kids would be ostriches. They incubate for 42 days barely eating or drinking. As we mentioned before, snakes don’t take care of their kids after they get out of their eggs. But they work really hard to make a home for them which will protect the eggs from other predators. That is why we can say that only few of the animal forms which are not very developed don’t try to protect their kids. By these examples we can conclude that most of the parents will do nearly everything to protect their children.
Lastly, both animal and human parents teach their kids new things that will help them throughout their lives. Humans usually do this by talking to their kids or more basically sending them to school. An example would be a dad telling his son how to compliment girls and how to be a gentleman. However, humans usually teach things that will make their life better, which is the difference between animal and human parents. Animals teach their kids how to survive and their babies learn by watching them. Another way they use is living in groups. When they live together their babies can play together and practice the things that will be useful for them in the future. For example, lion cubs start playing and fighting when they are 2-3 weeks old. They learn how to fight against other lions which will help them during their life at fights with other male lions which are trying to be the alpha male.
To summarize, human and animal parents treat their children in different ways when we consider the four criterion to compare and contrast these parents as; the limitations parents put on their kids, the time period the parents take care of their kids, the ways parents use to protect their kids and the things that the parents teach to their kids. However, nearly every parent tries to make their kids better by doing the best they can while protecting them and teaching them new things. Therefore, we shouldn’t consider ourselves better parents than animals.
