As a jurist, the author investigates the notion of parenting with regard to that of parenthood. The bond of parenthood, whether through blood or adoption, allows a person to be attached to his family, to be named with reference to this family, and to situate himself within it. It carries out the subject’s genealogical inscription. Parenting takes into account parental competence and tends to combine parenthood and parental authority. It cannot be analyzed as a component of a legal bond. But when jurists use this notion to satisfy the expectations of those who want to play a recognized role of father and mother with regard to the child, or to call into question defective parents, the concept of parenting leads to the weakening of parenthood. The jurist can only deplore this decline in rights.

Adolescence, septembre 2002, 20, 3, 621-633