Includes bibliographical references (pages 246-261) and index.

1. John Locke's children -- Coming to reason -- Parental power -- pt. I. Childhood -- 2. The concept of childhood -- Article I (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child : CRC) -- The Ariès thesis -- "Modernity -- Social constructionism -- Concepts and conceptions -- Rousseau -- Conceptions of childhood -- 3. The modern conception of childhood -- Separateness -- The developmental model : childhood as a "stage" -- "Childhood" and "adulthood" -- The religious and literary ideal : childhood as "innocence" -- pt. II. Children's rights -- 4. Children's moral rights -- Moral and legal rights -- The will theory and the interest theory -- The scope and weight of moral rights -- Liberation or caretaking? -- Children's liberation -- The caretaker thesis -- 6. Arbitrariness and incompetence -- 7. The wrongs of children's rights -- Rights are all-or-nothing -- The impoverished world of rights -- Rights talk is not the way to speak of children -- 8. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child -- The importance of the Convention -- Rights of the child -- Best interests -- Hearing the child -- A central tension -- 9. Children under the law -- Legal rights -- Children at law -- Welfare versus justice -- Vicarious parental liability -- 10. Children's rights to vote and sexual choice -- pt. III. Children, parents, family and state -- 11. Bearing and rearing -- Parental duties and parental rights -- 12. Family and state -- The liberal standard -- The state -- The family -- 13. Parental rights to privacy and autonomy -- Individualism versus collectivism -- 14. Collectivism -- Plato's proposal -- The licensing of parents -- 15. The problem of child abuse -- The discovery of abuse -- Defining abuse -- Sexual abuse -- 16. Conclusion : a modest collectivist proposal.