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Community parenting involves additional caregivers, such as family members or friends, helping to raise a child. It can provide support and create strong bonds, but requires trust and responsibility. Non-traditional families are becoming more common, but legal issues may arise for non-parental caregivers.
Community parenting can be broadly defined as any situation in which a child has caregivers in addition to his or her biological or adoptive parents. These caregivers may be family members such as grandparents, aunts and uncles, or older brothers and sisters. They may also be close family friends or other parents in the community who help each other with their children.
Non-traditional families, that is, families that do not consist only of a biological mother and father and their children, are becoming more common around the world. There are many single parents, blended families, adopted children and other non-traditional family situations. Parenting is a full-time responsibility and not everyone can do it alone. Community parenting, in which more than two caregivers assume responsibility for a child, can help provide a child with additional support as they grow up and can create strong bonds between adults.
In a form of community parenting, parents and children can spend time together as a group, while each parent takes turns watching the children play. Community parenting of this type requires a great deal of trust between parents, but helps form a strong community bond between parents and children. Parents benefit from such situations because the community offers extra security and support for their child.
While community parenting offers many significant benefits to the child, the family, and the community as a whole, it can also be controversial. It is important that parents, and others designated as a child’s primary caregivers, take responsibility for their child’s upbringing. While the entire community may be involved in a child’s upbringing, one should not leave the welfare of one’s child entirely to others, especially when they have their own children to care for. Community parenting can therefore be a delicate balance, with parents and other adults helping each other, but taking care to take their fair share of responsibility.
Community parenting is also controversial regarding the status of non-parental caregivers. A person may take on a great deal of responsibility in raising a child, acting as a full-fledged parent, but may not have any legal claims against the child. If something happens to the child’s legally recognized primary caregiver, a person who has helped with parenting responsibilities will not necessarily be able to obtain custody of the child without a lengthy legal battle, or will not be able to obtain custody of the child at all.
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