El Ejercicio de la parentalidad en las familias reconstituidas

Resum

This article presents some of the results of anthropological research in the Community of Madrid (Spain) on stepfamilies, that is; families in which one or both members of the couple have children from a previous relationship. Firstly, the text discusses the characteristics of these families who question the biologicist paradigm of kinship and the ideology of heterosexual marriage and family with a father and a mother typical Western societies. Secondly, we examine its consequences in the exercise of parental responsibilities, those that are socially assigned to the biological parents by their position in the structure and system of genealogical relationships. Finally, it raises some critical reflections on the concept of parenting used by Spanish and European public institutions in documents on positive parenting, because these documents still show an image of the family that is far from the diversity of family configurations present in European societies, in which biology and nature as a legitimate component of kinship are being replaced by the will and the choice of individuals.