Birds do it. Bees do it.: Parenting
Think from KERA
KERA
4.7 • 911 Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2026
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the debate of nature vs. nurture, the animal world does a lot more nurturing than you might think. Science journalist Elizabeth Preston joins host Krys Boyd to discuss parenting styles of animals – like otters that teach their offspring to swim – the role dads play in caring for their young, and what science knows about love in non-human creatures. Her book “The Creatures’ Guide to Caring: How Animal Parents Teach Us That Humans Were Born to Care.
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| 0:47.1 | Hear me out. |
| 0:48.2 | Try looking up videos of baby sea otters floating on their mama's bellies. |
| 0:53.8 | From KERA in Dallas, this is Think. I'm Chris |
| 0:57.1 | Boyd. Otterpups are not born knowing how to swim. First, they need their moms to act as |
| 1:03.4 | floating bassinets, and then they need their moms to teach them how to paddle and dive for themselves. |
| 1:09.4 | It turns out nature is full of devoted parents. |
| 1:13.1 | And as my guest will tell us, those caretakers include fathers as well as mothers and reptiles, |
| 1:18.6 | insects, and cephalopods along with birds and furry land animals. |
| 1:24.0 | Elizabeth Preston is a science journalist and author of the book The Creatures Guide to Caring, |
| 1:29.0 | How Animal Parents Teach Us that Humans were Born to Care. Elizabeth, welcome to think. |
| 1:34.8 | Thank you so much for having me. |
| 1:36.6 | This book was such a revelation for me because I guess I had assumed the role of animal parents |
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