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This article considers the social practice of intentional ‘plus-two-parent families’ as seen from a legal policy standpoint in Belgium and the Netherlands. It draws on governmental policy recommendations in juxtaposition with 25 in-depth interviews with parents living in aforementioned countries. The methodology used is ‘civilology’, or the ‘law-in-context’ approach. ‘Civilology’ as a label contemplates the study of law in relationship to its (social) context. This is necessary as changes in family law are often steered by political and ideological forces, rather than being evidence-based. Therefore, a more contextual understanding towards the interplay between social practice (lived experience) and envisioned policy-making (legal accommodation) proves to be a useful tool for Belgian and Dutch legislatures. The focus lies on plus-two-parent families, characterized by an intended parenting project that emerges before the child has been born and in which three or four parents have the intention to parent together, in accordance with the agreements that were made between them. Currently, Belgium and the Netherlands do not (yet) legally institutionalize legal parenthood and parental responsibility for more than two parents through links of parentage. In this article, I briefly discuss the inadequacy of the current legal framework in both jurisdictions as well as the legislative proposals that have already been developed. After shedding light on research output and methods, this article discusses the social practices of the interviewed parents in juxtaposition with the recent policy recommendations of the Dutch Government Committee on the Reassessment of Parenthood (hereafter: GCRP). Data is presented in accordance with the different topics headings that were used in the GCRP report. For every policy recommendation I look into the pros as well as the cons of the policy recommendations in light of the reported experiences of parents, starting with the modalities of the formation of multi-parenthood constellations. Here the focus lies on the eligibility of parties (parents), the prerequisite of a multi-parenthood contract as well as the child’s residence arrangements. This is followed by a section on the parents’ experiences of the lack of legal framework with regard to parental responsibility and legal parenthood, concepts which will each be probed separately. The next section specifically focusses on the legal desires of the parents in question. A synthesis and analysis follow in the discussion section. To conclude, this article considers the implications of the data on a potential legal multi-parenthood framework as envisioned by the GCRP. I query whether, based on parents’ experiences, certain issues were overlooked in the GCRP report. Currently, multi-parenthood generally remains an extra-juridical construct. In Belgium a child can have a maximum of two legal parents through links of parentage and/or by ‘strong’ adoption. An exception by Article 343§2 of the Belgian Civil Code is the ‘simple’ (or 1

‘Legal Multi-parenthood’ in Context: Experiences of Parents in Light of the Dutch Proposed Family Law Reforms