Everyone knows what a parent is, right? Well, not exactly. For example, while many people believe biology is the determining factor in establishing parental rights and obligations, it absolutely fails-so says Austin. Why? Well when you start asking what exactly it is in biology that determines parenthood things get murky. Is it carrying a child? If so, then are surrogate mothers parents of the children they give out to adoption? What about the sources of egg and sperm? Do donors have the rights to the children they inevitably produce? Or could it be genetic make up? But then, does a father's identical twin brother get a say in how to raise the child? Some think the causal sex act ought to be binding to a parental role, yet no one would want a rapist to be a father of their children.



In the book, Austin argues for a pluralistic understanding parenthood organized around the motif of stewardship. Broadly speaking, this means parents are specially invested in the care-taking and guidance of a young person into adulthood. Imagining the child as a potential adult, a parent is to be primarily interested in the child's well-being and is obligated to nurture and raise the child into a responsible adult capable of his or her own independence. Both parental consent and causal factors play a part in determining whether one is a parent or not. If a couple consents to raise a child, they can achieve parental status by way of adoption. Biological parents who forsake their children forfeit their parental rights, though they cannot annul their obligation to see to it that their children are placed in an environment of caring parental stewardship.



Austin ably submits many puzzles and paradoxes that function as effective examples and counterexamples of parenthood, and effectively demonstrates that it is something that is a moral rather than biological role. It's obligations are related to biological causation, but not necessarily in that consent and moral duty are the primary factors in being a good steward of a child's upbringing.



Though this book was a very dense and at times difficult read, but it was deeply rewarding... though probably not as difficult and rewarding as actually being a parent!