Flamingos practice shared and mixed parenting, which can sometimes teach humans an important lesson about responsibility and cooperation between both parents.
Beyond that, humans can also learn from flamingos lessons in building a child’s identity and finding their uniqueness.
Here are some things you might not know.
How do flamingo parents behave?
Flamingo mothers are usually very selective about their partners because raising a flamingo chick takes a long time and they need help in building the nest, incubating, and feeding the new chick.
Flamingo mothers choose the father of their future chick by participating in the famous dance rituals that flamingos are well known for.
In addition to using smell to identify their chick, a flamingo mother can also recognize her babies by appearance and sound.
This is very useful, because from a young age, flamingo chicks stay together in flocks while their parents search for food.
These flocks include chicks belonging to different parents.
The reason they can identify their chick’s call so accurately is that the chick begins to make sounds hours before it even hatches.
This gives the mother time to learn the specific voice of her chick.
The fact that flamingo parents recognize their chicks by smell and sound demonstrates how flamingos view their young they understand that each child is different and unique, and each should be treated individually in an appropriate way.
Humans can also learn this lesson from them.
Shared Responsibility
Adult flamingos feed their chicks with a type of “milk” which is actually a secretion from the upper digestive system.
This secretion is produced by the hormone prolactin, which both male and female flamingos produce.
In this way, both male and female flamingos equally participate in feeding the chicks. Flamingo parents also equally share other tasks, from building mud nests to incubating eggs and feeding the chicks as mentioned.
Shared responsibility is a central aspect of “flamingo parenting” and can also teach humans.
When both parents share the joint burden, children grow better.
Although chicks begin to try feeding themselves at a young age, they rely on their parents for food until their beaks are fully developed.
From there, the chicks start their independent journey, and flamingo parents generally encourage them to be independent as part of their upbringing.
