I think David Attenborough might be trying to pressure me into having a baby. I\u2019m only sort of joking. In recent years demographers\u2019 warnings about plummeting birth rates have led to a global surge in \u201cpro-natalist\u201d policies encouraging women to have more children. Hungary, for instance, is trialling lifelong income tax exemptions for mothers of two or more. And now, in the BBC\u2019s prime Sunday night slot, comes a new series by the nation\u2019s silver-voiced godfather celebrating Parenthood. <\/p>\n
Nominally about animals, not humans, it kicks off with a mother gorilla (a fairly anthropomorphic choice) cradling her days-old baby in one large paw, while Attenborough\u2019s hypnotic voiceover tells us: \u201cSuccess for her and indeed for all parents has perhaps the greatest of consequences: it ensures the future of life on our planet.\u201d Hmmm, not sure we\u2019re really talking about gorillas, are we Dave?<\/p>\n
To be clear, Parenthood doesn\u2019t sugarcoat parenting \u2014 in episode one there\u2019s an unusually graphic shot of a mother lion gored to death by a water buffalo she\u2019d been hunting for her kids\u2019 lunch \u2014 but the film-makers deftly convert its challenges into heroism. We get shots of a bristle-chinned Tanzanian hippo mamma waddling out from the safety of the swamp for a lion-menaced night-time hunting trip, and an Indonesian Banggai cardinalfish \u2014 one of the show\u2019s few dads: I wonder if they considered calling it Motherhood but decided that wasn\u2019t feminist \u2014 spitting out its newly hatched young from the safety of its mouth after four weeks of fasting, in a deeply weird and weirdly touching display of love. Parenting, so the show tells us, requires courage, sacrifice and mettle. Your country\u2019s birth rate needs you. <\/p>\n
\u2022 Read more TV reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews <\/a><\/p>\n But there\u2019s an irony to Attenborough, whose work over the years has become increasingly focused on environmental damage, encouraging us, whether consciously or not, to have kids. There\u2019s plenty here about the way humans are destroying animal habitats, from an octopus caught in a plastic tube to an overfishing-induced plague of sea urchins devastating Californian kelp forests. More and more humans, history tells us, is a recipe for more and more damage.<\/p>\n Sorry, that\u2019s quite a gloomy note to end on. Did anyone catch the cricket on Monday morning? Watching a gladiatorial, one-armed Chris Woakes marching out to face the India attack was my TV highlight of the week by far. <\/p>\n Love TV? Discover the best shows on Netflix<\/a>, the best Prime Video TV shows<\/a>, the best Disney+ shows<\/a> , the best Apple TV+ shows<\/a>, the best shows on BBC iPlayer<\/a> , the best shows on Sky and Now<\/a>, the best shows on ITVX<\/a>, the best shows on Channel 4<\/a> streaming, the best shows on Paramount+<\/a> and our favourite hidden gem TV shows<\/a>. Don\u2019t forget to check our comprehensive TV guide<\/a> for the latest listings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I think David Attenborough might be trying to pressure me into having a baby. I\u2019m only sort of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-60984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}