Panther wasted nourishment - no head for childcare (10)
I believe the answer is:
parenthood
'head for childcare' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both states of affairs as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'panther wasted nourishment no' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
an anagram of 'panther' is 'parenth' which is located in the answer.
'nourishment' could be 'd' (D is an example) and 'd' is present in the answer.
'no' could be 'o' (resembles 0 - 'no' can mean 'zero') and 'o' is found in the answer.
A single letter 'o' remains which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for parenthood that I've seen is " permanent relationship".)