Since the last family law reform in 1980, several expert groups have proposed legislative changes to adapt the law to contemporary family realities, particularly with respect to the law relating to parental authority. The legislator finally followed some of their recommendations by adopting the Act to amend the Civil Code and other legislative provisions as regards adoption and the disclosure of information in June 2017 and, in so doing, integrated suppletive tutorship into Quebec civil law. These changes may suggest a greater emphasis on the individual will of parents in certain situations, whereas historically, parental authority has been an institution deemed to be unavailable. This legal novelty and the few criticisms it has been subjected to provide an opportunity to question the evolution of the place that the law gives to the will of the holders of parental authority, as well as the theoretical foundations that support certain reservations about it. This paper demonstrates three main findings: (1) the notions of will and parental authority are not necessarily incompatible when one observes the historical evolution of the institution; (2) the law relating to parental authority has not succeeded in freeing itself from the principles of canon law which, in the past, constituted the foundations of family law; and (3) it is necessary to reflect on the adaptability of the principle of the indisponibility of parental authority in order to respect the primary objective of the institution, namely the protection of the child.