Parenting is intricately entwined with child development and many examples could be cited with regards to the links between parenting and child behavioral, cognitive, and health outcomes. Yet, it is unclear how parenting actually translates into the myriad outcomes studied to date. Although biological underpinnings are postulated, including altered stress response, brain maturation, and epigenetic signatures, these mechanisms are not well worked out. With respect to epigenetic mechanisms, there are still gaps in understanding how early parenting of human children affects their DNA methylation, whether the normative variation in parenting will result in any epigenetic changes, and whether parenting works THROUGH DNA methylation to produce behavioral outcomes in children.