This collection of essays is the product of a series of seminars held at the University of Cambridge in 1998 under the auspices of the newly formed Cambridge Socio-Legal Group. The book presents an interdisciplinary exploration of the nature of parenthood and its various manifestations in contemporary society. It is divided into three sections dealing respectively with defining parenthood, new issues in contemporary parenting and parenting post-divorce. Each contributor addresses the central question What is a Parent? from the perspective of his or her own discipline, thus bringing together ideas about parents derived from law, sociology, psychology, biology and criminology. Despite the familiar and apparently obvious answer to this question, the notion of parent emerges from the analysis as a contested concept. Definitions are various and fluid, parenting practices are by no means fixed and ideologies which frame who parents are and what they do are subject to disruptions from several quarters. In short, the essays in this book show the ways in which parent like child is a term with a shifting meaning and parenthood refers to a fluid set of social practices which are historically and culturally situated.
Author(s): Cambridge Socio-Legal Group, Andrew Bainham, Shelley Day Sclater, Martin Richards
Year: 1999
Language: English
Pages: 256
Half Title Page......Page 1
Title Page......Page 3
Title verso......Page 4
Contents......Page 5
Acknowledgements......Page 7
Notes on the Contributors......Page 9
Table of Cases......Page 12
1. Introduction......Page 15
Part 1: Defining Parenthood......Page 37
2. Parentage, Parenthood and Parental Responsibility: Subtle, Elusive Yet Important Distinctions......Page 39
3. A Biomedical Perspective on Parenthood......Page 61
4. Assisted Reproduction and the Legal Definition of Parentage......Page 87
6. Family or Familiarity?......Page 121
Part II: New Issues in Contemporary Parenting......Page 133
7. Donating Parenthood: Perspectives on Parenthood from Surrogacy and Gamete Donation......Page 135
8. Unmarried Fathers and the Law......Page 157
9. Lesbian Mother Families......Page 175
10. Parents: A Children's Perspective......Page 195
11. State Intervention and Parental Autonomy in Children's Cases: Have We Got the Balance Right?......Page 211
12. Youth Crime and Parental Responsibility......Page 231
Part III: Parenting Post-Divorce......Page 255
13. The Parent-Child Relationship in Later Life: the Longer-Term Effects of Parental Divorce and Remarriage......Page 257
15. The Psycho-Politics of Post-Divorce Parenting......Page 285
Index......Page 309
