In Finnish early childhood education and care, partnership has been introduced as a general approach in the parent-practitioner collaboration. Based on qualitative interviews with practitioners, the article studies, from a social constructionist and discourse analytic perspective, whether partnership is actualised in parent-practitioner relationship and how it is done. The results show that the ideas about parent-practitioner collaboration are not coherent. In the vertical frame the collaboration is considered as a hierarchical relationship but in the horizontal frame, which reflects the partnership approach, parallel expertise and proximity are emphasised. However, the ideal of partnership seems to lead to varying interpretations about what partnership and parent participation mean in practice. (Contains 7 excerpts and 5 notes.)