Parenting: A comparison between cultural models and traditions

The author presents a classification of parenting, according to the most recent studies. Its specific multidimensional nature is highlighted, considering this specificity as the reason why the parents need to adapt the caring practices to the culture, the society and the unique features of their child. So, parenting has been outlined as a modular and flexible entity, related to the context, continuously modified and adapted, being it the result of interactive processes among child, parents and the context where they live. After presenting some models about the relationship between cultural models and parenting, it is considered a parents practice of highly symbolic meaning: the co-sleeping with the baby; a practice so different between migrants families, coming from traditional societies, and Western Countries families.