Is the parenting skill non-autonomous or does it require the Guiding Hand to create new life?

I ask because in a previous village I noticed that no new babies were being made when the game was "off". But I figured maybe I didn't have anyone either set to parenting or I was at max pop. or something.

This new set of villagers I had a male set to parenting overnight, I have plenty of room in the village and have both huts restored (partial hut in the middle and ruins by the statue).. there are only 28 villagers right now. So I thought that by the time I next checked not only would I have more villagers but that he should have been close to being a JOAT. The game ran as "normal" from 3:35am to 1:48pm which would be about 10 hours.

He's not any further and the pop. didn't go up:

http://mistymage.com/virtualvillagers/difference.html

If that (28 people) is the max for having 2 huts restored.. shouldn't he still be trying to "embrace" and getting exp. points for those attempts?