This essay brings together three intergenerational colleagues, two RECE founders, and a mid-career colleague, engaged in reciprocal mentorship, collaborative projects, and research focused on child care, critical policy studies, and global childhoods. We explore our encounters with RECE and how we have engaged with, been influenced by, and found…

Recent social policy discourses in Aotearoa New Zealand focus on vulnerable children's well-being and the detrimental, long-term and costly impacts of child poverty. The discourse pervading much of the policy labels children and young people as "vulnerable" or "at risk" or "in crisis", a view, which we argue, is both…

Legal and political theorists strive at expanding the scope of children's rights to cover further areas of their lives and choices. This paper suggests that this effort is misguided, and that the protection of children requires instituting adults' obligations, rather than broadening children's rights. Contrary to the common theoretical and…