Stepparents’ Upbringing Obligation Towards their Stepchildren

Abstract The article explores the issue of reconstructed families, focusing specifically on the roles of individual family members and the processes that occur within such families. Due to the complexity of the above processes, the article concentrates on the deliberations about the stepparent’s upbringing process towards the stepchild, determining its content, scope and role. The article analyses of the stepparent’s duty towards the stepchild, highlighting its normative sources, and assesses this duty in relation to the parental authority of the spouse and the parental authority of the other biological parent outside the reconstructed family. The deliberations presented in the article aim to support the primary thesis of the article that in order for the foster parent’s current custody of the child to be effective, the stepparent’s situation in terms of upbringing obligation should be made independent of the biological parent’ situation, which stems from their parental authority. The article proposes introducing for example, an institution of the so-called “adoptive parent’s care” that would encompass some rights and obligations typical of parental authority and independent of the parental authority of the child’s biological parent. This could serve as an equivalent to the concept of parental responsibility found in English law.