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The article investigates the extent to which the notion of parenthood is resorted to in the professional world of child protection. Having briefly recalled the outlines of the concept, the author develops ideas based on excerpts from the discourse of social workers involved in two areas of research. The first were gathered in during a study on team work around the evaluation of children in situations of risk (recordings made during meetings on the subject), while the second came from a study on recordings of interviews between parents and professionals. They tend to show that the concept is quite simply not resorted to in coming to an understanding of such situations. The article then seeks to identify possible reasons for this state of affairs as observed in reference to the question of perceptions, to that of training and that of the link between research and practice.