The concept of who and what a parent is was brought up the other day. An interesting, albeit frustrating issue. There are so many different types of parents these days, and I don't mean your own personal brand of beliefs and disciplines, I mean definitions of parenthood.
There are: step-parents, foster parents, adoptive parents, biological parents, absentee parents, and dead beat parents; and that's probably not a complete list. Each term has it's own unique connotation when used to describe someone. It's the second half of that list that trips me up, that bothers me and causes confusion at times. Biological, absentee, and dead beat all pretty much boil down to the same thing: a person whose only real contribution to your life is half of your genetic code. Do these types of parents really qualify for the title?
Personally, I don't think so. The parents are the people doing the work, the people raising the children. If you've assisted in the creation of a human being through biological means, but do not actually assist or contribute to the raising of that creation, you are not a parent.
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