Family Law Commons^™

Timing Legal Parenthood, Noy Naaman

Arkansas Law Review

When does a parent become a parent? This Article examines this question through a novel framework that analyzes the tension between an individual’s evolving self-identification as a parent and the law’s acknowledgment of the individual’s parental status. It focuses on two forms of that tension. The first concerns a scenario occurring after the birth of a child, when the self-identification as a parent is established but the law has yet to formalize the parental status. The second involves a scenario occurring before the birth, when the self-identification as a parent-to-be—the process of becoming—is legally overlooked. This Article argues that this …