Parenthood is the state of being a mother or a father — the whole condition of having a child, not one afternoon’s work. People talk about entering parenthood, the joys of parenthood, single parenthood. It names the life you are in, and the fact that you are now a parent. Though actually, it is a rather tidy, slightly formal word; friends more often say “since we had kids” or “being a mum.” It is not the same as parenting, which is the doing: the feeding, the rules, the worrying. You can be in parenthood and still feel you are only learning parenting. It is also not parentage, which looks back at the family you came from.