The Problem of Actual Parenting: A Methodological View

Abstract

Fixing the situation of doctrinal backlog in the development of the problem of actual parenting of a minor, the author explores the problem from the perspective of the instrumental approach. At the phenomenological level, the essential signs of actual upbringing are subject to the theoretical analysis These signs include: implicity as a social phenomenon, casuability, heterogeneity of social reasons for emergence, apparent voluntariness, gratuitousness, opacity of the circle of actual educators, preservation of continuous communication with the child’s family, lack of legal connection with the moment of emergence and termination of this type of actual relationship. At the interdisciplinary level, the extra-legal grammar of actual parenting is investigated with the inclusion of other social phenomena, structures and institutions closely related to it, providing reasonable scientific perception of this theoretical construct in jurisprudence. Using the political-legal approach complementing the traditional dogmatic approach to the study of the problem of actual parenting, the author aims to expand doctrinal boundaries of the solution of the problem of actual parenting in its legal perspective, creating prerequisites for future research of the topic in the context of its methodological preparedness. The author’s findings are based on the fact that the legal problem of actual parenting lies in the bosom of the problems of family education rather than between family education and forms of institutional protection of children, as is often seen in the family law doctrine. The normative nature of relations in the field of the family upbringing of a child, ensured through numerous acts of international law on child saving, national constitutional norms, principles of family law, general provisions of individual institutions and structures, does not make it clear that today’s legislative attitude to actual parenting is in no way consistent with the family law dogmatics.