Caregiving in Contemporary Families: From Parental Care to Alloparenting and Family Care Networks

Contemporary families are increasingly characterized by diverse structures and caregiving arrangements that extend beyond traditional maternal-centered models. Care is now distributed across a broader network of actors, including fathers, co-parents, grandparents, siblings, professional caregivers, and early childcare environments. Within this evolving landscape, alloparenting — caregiving provided by individuals other than the biological mother — has become a central feature of children’s developmental contexts. Non-maternal caregiving, whether provided by fathers, other family members, or formal childcare providers, plays a fundamental role in shaping children’s attachment experiences, regulatory capacities, and socioemotional development. Despite its growing prevalence, the psychological, relational, and socio-cultural processes underlying caregiving behaviors within these extended networks remain poorly explored.This Research Topic aims to provide a comprehensive framework for investigating alloparenting dynamics, co-parenting processes, paternal and grandparental caregiving, sibling caregiving roles, non-parental professional care, and childcare participation in infancy and early childhood (0-5 years). We particularly welcome contributions addressing non-maternal caregiving, shared caregiving arrangements, attachment processes across multiple caregivers, intergenerational relationships, and the contextual factors shaping caregiving practices in contemporary families of infants, toddlers, and preschool-age children. The collection seeks to stimulate interdisciplinary dialogue and empirical research that advances theoretical models of caregiving, while offering new insights to enrich developmental models and to promote an integrative view of caregiving that reflects the complexity of contemporary family life.Specific themes of interest include:• Alloparenting and non-parental caregiving• Fathering and paternal involvement• Co-parents and co-parenting dynamics• Grandparental caregiving• Early childcare and daycare participation• Foster care and adoption• Sibling relationships• Parental leave policies and work–family balance• Non-parental professional caregivers• Attachment bonding, and socio-emotional development• Caregiver well-being and stress• Intergenerational relationships• Cultural and societal influences on caregiving• Neurobiology of alloparenting • Contextual factors shaping child developmentThis Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description: Brief Research Report, Case Report, Conceptual Analysis, Editorial, FAIR² Data, FAIR² DATA Direct Submission, General Commentary, Hypothesis and Theory, Methods, Mini Review, Opinion, Original Research, Perspective, Policy Brief, Review, Systematic Review. Topic editors: Erica Neri, Michele Giannotti, Francesca Agostini Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/79004/caregiving-in-contemporary-families-from-parental-care-to-alloparenting-and-family-care-networks