Relevance. The relevance of the study of youth representations of parenting is due to a number of socio-economic and psychological changes taking place in modern society, including the emergence of deviant forms of parenthood, the phenomena of mixing family roles and abandonment of parenthood in general.

Objective. The purpose of this study is to study the content features of representations of motherhood and fatherhood in girls and boys and determine the degree of their harmony as a condition of psychological readiness for parenthood.

Method. Content analysis of the respondents' essays on the topic of future parenthood, aimed at identifying the content of the features of representations of parenthood and the degree of their harmony in girls and boys.

The study involved 231 respondents (190 girls and 42 boys), aged 18 to 25 years.

Results.The main characteristics of parenthood as a special social role and activity: child care; creation of necessary conditions for the development of the child; education of the child; emotional support of the child. It is revealed that in the views of girls the most important function of motherhood is to provide emotional support to the child; in the views of young men about fatherhood - education and training of the child. The majority of respondents demonstrated a high degree of discrepancies of perceptions about parental functions related to the idealization of the images of the child and their own parenting and the lack of representations about the methods of implementing maternal and paternal roles.

Conclusions. The data obtained show that the surveyed young people are not ready to realize a parental role and require corrective work aimed at forming realistic, complete and adequate representations of motherhood and fatherhood before their occurrence.