the.com/parenthood
the lifelong job you accept before reading a single word of the contract.
means The state or condition of being a parent, with all the responsibilities, joys, and exhaustion that raising a child entails.
from A straightforward English compound: "parent" plus the suffix "-hood." The word "parent" comes through Old French from the Latin "parens," meaning "one who brings forth," from the verb "parere," to give birth or produce. The "-hood" is an old Germanic suffix (Old English "-had") meaning a state, rank, or condition — the same one that gives us "childhood," "neighborhood," and "knighthood." So at root it simply means "the condition of one who has brought forth."
- brain rewire
- Parents' brains physically restructure within months of arrival
- sleep debt
- New parents lose roughly six months of sleep yearly
- baby DNA
- Fetal cells linger in mothers for decades after
- voice shift
- Adults universally raise pitch when speaking to infants
- cost reality
- Raising one US child tops 300,000 dollars