Humans are exquisitely social animals and shared care of young is crucial to survival and adult functioning. In this class we sample, explore and discuss the variety of forms of human infant and young child care across space and time, of which parenting is just one. Specifically, we explore perspectives generated by anthropologists, international public health practitioners and others interested in variation in childcare practices and its social determinants and health effects. We consider the complex, biocultural and bi-directional relationships between care and health in different social and ecological settings. Students can: expand their understanding of patterns of human care-giving, and theories offered to explain them; think about the design, techniques and goals of anthropological and interdisciplinary research; consider the evolutionary history of childcare and its potential contemporary relevance; identify differences and commonalities in cross-cultural patterns of childcare; reflect on the salient care needs of human young; discuss variation in practice through the alternative “lenses” of diversity, disparity, and inequity; understand the relation between child care contexts and global health indicators; address implications for policy and the future of human well being and planetary health.