The subject of this master's thesis is the role of the mother in the formation of the father's parental role. This process entails encouraging and supporting the father during his involvement in the parenting process, but also discouraging and opposing his parenting efforts, as well as controlling interactions between the father and the child. The theoretical part of the thesis, first of all, justifies the distinction between the role of mother and father within the family context. Then the factors that determine the father’s involvement in childcare are presented. Furthermore, co-parenting is defined together with the specific behaviors of mothers toward the fathers, known as maternal gatekeeping. The theoretical part is concluded with the analysis of factors responsible for the mother’s formation of the paternal parental role, accompanied by the systematization of those factors into three categories: characteristics of a society, characteristics of the family and individual characteristics of the mother. Accordingly, the main aim of the empirical research was both to describe how the research participants understand the optimal distribution of parental roles of mother and father, and to capture how they approach the formation of the father's parental role in their real-life parenting practice. The research was carried out on a sample of ten female participants, and data were collected through interviews. The research found that the participants balance between an egalitarian and an essentialist understanding of parenting roles. At the practical level, they bear a greater burden of parenting than the fathers and show various encouraging, restrictive and controlling behavior toward them. Finally, the thesis analyses the limitations of the conducted empirical research and emphasizes the reasons why this topic is significant for pedagogy.