La competenza genitoriale. Verso l'orizzonte della reciprocità

The present essay aims to describe the notion of parenting competence by exploring its pedagogical and educational meanings. Parenting is the only educational relationship with a dual feature; in the analysis of co-parenting in contemporary life reciprocity is pointed out. This means that, even if one of the parents is not present, the caregiver has nonetheless a desire of sharing. He/she feels a need to negotiate and share the parental responsibility and the educational tasks with other adults. Therefore the parenting competence can be seen as a suitable process of the history of other bonds, whether preceding or coexisting in the parent's life (e.g. the experience of being son/daughter, brother/sister, wife/husband). Firstly the parenting competence is to take a permanent responsibility of the children, and then it is defined by the relationships; all bonds (mainly as spouses, but not only) deeply characterize the world of an adult parent. Finally the experience of bonds is shown as a big resource to support the parenting.