Handbook Chapter - "Soziale Elternschaft"

The "Handbuch: Feministische Perspektischen auf Elternschaft" (Handbook: Feminist Perspectives on Parenthood), edited by Dr. Lisa Yashodhara Haller and Alicia Schlender and published by Barbara Budrich Verlag over the New Year, contains the essay "Soziale Elternschaft" (Social Parenthood, open access) by Leoni Linek and Mona Motakef (co-authored with Almut Peukert, Julia Teschlade, and Christine Wimbauer).

From a feminist perspective, the paper argues for a stronger focus on social parenting. In social and in family sociological discourse, the concept of parenthood is largely based on the unquestioned assumption of a family consisting of two heterosexual adults and their biological as well as legal children. The term social parenthood, on the other hand, is used in family sociology when one parent assumes care responsibilities but does not have legal parental status. This implicitly assumes the convergence of legal, biological and social parenthood, which is empirically inaccessible. The primacy of legal (and biological) over social parenthood generates diverse exclusions and inequalities. This article discusses the implications of this particularity and argues for a critical (re)interpretation of social parenthood as a cross-cutting issue - that is, as relevant to all families or people with children. After all, it is the everyday shouldering of practical responsibility that is most important for children.