“Injustice toward children is deeply rooted in our history. The modern movement for children’s rights is only the latest stage in the battle for human rights—a continuing struggle for justice that reaches back to the earliest days of this nation.”
~Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, Hidden in Plain Sight: The Tragedy of Children’s Rights from Ben Franklin to Lionel Tate, 2008[1]
As a child protection professional who writes about child liberation theology, I frequently find myself searching my personal library and the Internet for histories of child advocacy (including child protection, children’s rights, child liberation, and child-attentive theologies). While there are several histories and timelines available in child protection textbooks and on various websites, many are highly selective and thus incomplete. Many are also limited in their scope, meaning, they focus on the most publicized moments and thus often neglect to cover or discuss the most marginalized children, like children of color or queer children or children with disabilities.
So, I see a need for an extensive historical timeline of child advocacy, which is free and accessible to all. Fortunately, even though I am not a historian, I like researching and writing about history. In 2015, I greatly enjoyed creating a historical timeline about the modern homeschooling movement in the United States.
I decided, therefore, to create the child advocacy timeline myself. Like my homeschooling history timeline, my child advocacy history timeline focuses primarily on the United States. However, I also mention some key figures and moments in child advocacy from outside this country. This is because of their significant influence on American activists and advocacy. I also want to highlight how these movements are not simply white or American or modern.
There’s something else I highlight as well. No movement is perfect. Every movement, regardless of the purity and necessity of its central motivating factor, will include individuals who use the movement abusively. Child advocacy is no different. Throughout the history of child protection, children’s rights, child liberation, and child-attentive theologies in the United States, there have been activists and advocates—many times dear heroes of the movement—who have used these causes to advance evil. For example, when assimilation boarding schools were created for Native American children, they were cast as positive developments for the children—but were instead horrific. Another example is how some children’s rights activists—such as Shulamith Firestone, John Holt, and Richard Farson—have defended child sexual abuse perpetrated by adults as healthy and normal.
It may seem strange to include these people and moments in this timeline. However, I believe it is important to include the imperfect and abusive people who were once celebrated (and sometimes continue to be celebrated) in this movement so that future activists and advocates are aware of what must be avoided. We must not go backwards. We must not use child protection as a cudgel against marginalized people groups any longer. We must not allow child sexual predators to smuggle their devastating and violent ideologies and practices into our movement ever again. The stakes are too high. The cost is too much.
I hope you learn something new from this American history of child advocacy. If you previously thought child advocacy was something adults do for children, I hope you now see that children themselves have always been an integral part. If you previously believed that child advocacy is just about excusing child sexual abuse, I hope you now understand how wildly inaccurate that caricature is and how it erases all the brave children and advocates who have fought over the centuries to protect children from abuse. If you previously assumed child advocacy comes more naturally for one political group than another (for example, progressives or conservatives or Republicans or Democrats), I hope you now know it is a lot more complicated than that.
This timeline repeatedly demonstrates that people from around the world, throughout different time periods and with different cultural assumptions, can understand the importance of protecting children and their rights as well as liberating children from abuse and neglect by means of political and religious empowerment. This idea of child advocacy is not new, it is not partisan, it is not ideological, and it is not crazy. It makes sense to children and adults alike today and has made sense to children and adults alike in the past. It will continue to make sense in the future. Children’s rights are human rights because we all rise together.
Finally, if you believe I am missing an important person, date, or event, or if you notice something incorrect or a broken link, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you.
~R.L. Stollar, December 2025
*****
1642
The Massachusetts Bay Colony passes a law giving local magistrates authority to remove children from parents who treat children improperly.[2]
1693
Sir William Phips, Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, adopts a child. This is the first recorded legal adoption in the American colonies.[3]
1729
Nuns from the Order of Saint Ursula found the first orphanage in North America in Natchez, Mississippi.[4]
1785
The Northwest Ordinance establishes rules for dividing new American lands into territories and towns that will ultimately become the states of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The same rules later govern land west of the Mississippi, too. In total, the Northwest Ordinance helps shape thirty-one states. Education for children is embedded into the structure of these future states. The Northwest Ordinance divides every town into thirty-six lots and reserves a center lot for public schools for children, requiring outer lots to generate resources for those schools.[5]
1797
English Radical Thomas Spence publishes The Rights of Infants, in which he argues for rights for women and children as well as a universal basic income.[6]
1819
The U.S. Congress enacts the Civilization Fund Act, which pays white missionaries and church leaders to partner with the federal government to establish schools in Native American territories to “civilize” Native American children by replacing their tribal practices with Christian practices.[7]
1822
The first orphanage for Black children, the Colored Orphan Asylum, is established in Philadelphia.[8]
1836
Massachusetts becomes the first U.S. state to pass a child labor law, requiring children under 15 years old who work in factories to attend school for a minimum of three months out of the year.[9]
1842
The New York Court of Appeals rules in Mercein v. People that parents do not own their children but are entrusted by law with their nurture.[10]
1845
Abolitionist and civil rights leader Frederick Douglass writes Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. According to children’s rights advocate Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, Douglass’ “narrative of a childhood in slavery, and his insights into the condition of children generally, show us that injustice toward children is deeply rooted in our history.”[11]
1850
Alabama becomes the first state to pass legislation guaranteeing an adopted child the right to inherit property from their adoptive parent(s).[12]
1851
Massachusetts passes the Adoption of Children Act, requiring judges to ensure that every adoption is “fit and proper.”[13]
1852
Massachusetts becomes the first U.S. state to enact a compulsory education law. The law requires every city and town to offer primary school to children, focusing on grammar and basic arithmetic. Parents who refuse to send their children to school are fined or stripped of parental duties.
1853
Organized child welfare in the United States begins with the New York Children’s Aid Society, founded by Charles Loring Brace. This “placing out” program matches children to families to meet their physical, emotional, and familial needs and is considered the beginning of foster care. The Children’s Aid Society is most remembered for its orphan trains, which move poor children—with or without parents—from New York City to the countryside.[14]
1857
French forensic physician Auguste Ambroise Tardieu begins describing forms of child mistreatment, including sexual abuse and child labor. He points out both the prevalence of child abuse as well as how physicians can diagnose it. His findings are ignored by the medical establishment and society at large. The topic does not appear in scientific literature again until 1929 with Jose Martinez.[15]
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Dred Scott that Harriet and Dred Scott and their children, Eliza and Lizzie, are not citizens under the Constitution due to being of African descent. According to award-winning children’s book author Gwyneth Swain, “Historians say the Court’s decision was all about states’ rights, citizenship rights, and a host of other big and important ideas. But to Dred Scott and Harriet Robinson Scott, it was simple. It was about children. It was about how precious their daughters were to them. It was about a dream Dred and Harriet had. They dreamed that their children—the daughters of slaves—would be free.”[16]
1861
Harriet Jacobs writes Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, which reveals that “slavery held uniquely different terrors for girls than for boys” and “that their gender circumscribed their avenues of escape.”[17]
1867
New Jersey becomes the first state to ban corporal punishment of children in public schools. The next state to enact a similar ban, Massachusetts, does not do so until 1972.[18]
1868
The United States adopts the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, overturning Dred Scott and guaranteeing birthright citizenship to any child born in the United States or with a U.S. citizen as a parent at the time of the child’s birth. Native Americans living under tribal sovereignty, however, are excluded from birthright citizenship until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.[19]
1874
Child abuse enters the national consciousness in the United States with the rescue of Mary Ellen Wilson, a young girl who was harshly abused by her guardians. Prior to this point, there was no such thing as child protective services in the United States and child welfare remained a charitable, not governmental, task. Mary Ellen’s rescuer, Etta Angell Wheeler, relied on the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and its influential founder, Henry Bergh, to form a case to save Mary Ellen.[20]
1875
The 1874 rescue of Mary Ellen Wilson inspires the founding of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the world’s first organization dedicated entirely to child protection.[21]
1879
The first federally sanctioned assimilation boarding school for Native American children is opened by Captain Richard H. Pratt: the Carlisle Industrial Training School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Pratt’s stated philosophy is “Kill the Indian and save the man.”[22]
1880
Efforts begin in some U.S. states to raise the age of sexual consent for girls. At the time, the average age of consent among the states was 10 to 12 (in Delaware, it was 7).[23]
1885
Journalist William T. Stead goes undercover in London’s brothels. He publishes a series of articles, collectively titled “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon,” in the Pall Mall Gazette detailing how London’s husbands and fathers paid large sums to rape virgin children in the city’s brothels. Within months, public outcry led the British Parliament to raise the age of consent to 16.[24]
1891
The U.S Congress enacts universal compulsory education of Native American children in assimilation boarding schools, authorizing the office enforcing this policy to “withhold rations, clothing and other annuities from Indian parents or guardians who refuse or neglect to send and keep their children in some school a reasonable portion of each year.”[25]
Michigan becomes the first state to pass legislation requiring the investigation of adoptive parents.[26]
1894
Nineteen Native American parents refuse to send their children to assimilation board schools. They are arrested and imprisoned on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco, California.[27]
1895
Colorado state representative Carrie Clyde Holly becomes the first woman lawmaker in the United States to propose a bill. Her bill aims to raise the age of consent in Colorado to 21 years old.[28]
1899
The world’s first juvenile court is established in Chicago, Illinois.[29]
Newsboys, child laborers who sell newspapers, lead a strike to change the way newspaper barons compensate them. The strike begins in New York City, New York, and soon spreads to many other cities and states. It lasts two weeks and decreases the number of newspapers sold per day by hundreds of thousands. Thousands of child laborers join the strike, making it the largest child-led strike in history.[30]
1900
Between 1886 and 1900, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)—the largest women’s organization in the United States—petitions every state legislature in the country. They garner tens of thousands of signatures and dispatch women to legislative sessions from coast to coast, all demanding that the age of consent be raised to 18. They are met with stonewalling, mockery, and rejection by many male legislators. However, by 1900, 32 states raise the age of consent to between 14 and 18.[31]
Swedish feminist Ellen Key writes a book on a child-centered approach to education and parenting, which will be translated into English in 1909 under the title The Century of the Child. Her thesis is that the 20th Century will involve dramatic change in favor of children’s rights. She also critiques corporal punishment of children (“Corporal punishment is as humiliating for him who gives it as for him who receives it; it is ineffective besides”) and the conditions of child labor and child slavery created by wealthy people: “A destroyed home life, an idiotic school system, premature work in the factory, stupefying life in the streets, these are what the great city gives to the children of the under classes”).[32]
1901
Social worker and women’s suffrage activist Jane Addams founds the Juvenile Protective Association, an organization devoted to advocacy against child labor, exploitation, and racism in the Chicago region.[33]
1903
Labor leader and organizer Mary Harris “Mother” Jones leads hundreds to thousands of children and their families on a march from Pennsylvania to New York against child labor. The event is called “The March of the Mill Children.”[34]
1904
The myth of “the teen brain,” the idea that teenagers’ emotional problems and misbehavior are due to incompletely developed brains, is launched by the publication of psychologist G. Stanley Hall’s landmark, two-volume series Adolescence. Hall argues that adolescence is the necessary and inevitable reenactment of a “savage, pigmoid” stage of human evolution, concluding that teen turmoil is an inevitable part of human development.[35]
1908
Photographer Lewis Hine begins capturing child working conditions in photos to educate the public about child labor abuses.[36]
1909
President Theodore Roosevelt and child welfare leaders hold the White House Conference in support of the Mother’s Pension Movement. This movement advocates that children should not be removed from their homes solely due to poverty.[37]
Jane Addams writes The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets, which argues play and recreation are necessary for healthy child development.[38]
Italian physician and teacher Maria Montessori writes her seminal book, translated into English in 1912 with the title The Montessori Method: Scientific Pedagogy as Applied to Child Education in the Children’s Houses.
1911
The first U.S. Montessori school is opened in Tarrytown, New York.
1912
The United States creates the Children’s Bureau, the first national government office in the world focused solely on children’s well-being.
1913
More than 100 Montessori schools have been created in the United States.[39]
1916
The U.S. Congress passes the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act and President Woodrow Wilson signs it into law. This act is the first child labor bill. Two years later, in 1918, the U.S. Supreme Court will rule that it is unconstitutional in Hammer v. Dagenhart.[40]
1917
Mississippi becomes the final U.S. state to pass a law requiring parents to send their children to school.
1918
The U.S. Congress passes a second child labor bill in December of 1918 as part of the Revenue Act of 1919. Four years later, in 1922, the U.S. Supreme Court will once again rule that regulating child labor is unconstitutional in Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Company.[41]
1919
All but 3 U.S. states now have juvenile courts.
Eglantyne Jebb creates the Save the Children Fund, a UK-based organization dedicated to child protection and operating under a Declaration of Child Rights. The Declaration will be taken over almost without alteration by the League of Nations in 1924 as the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child and with some additions and amendments by the United Nations in 1959.[42]
The League of Nations is founded. The first action taken by the international community, in a matter that is not to be left to the sole discretion of the states, is the creation of a Child Welfare Committee.[43]
Polish Jewish pediatrician and early children’s rights advocate Janusz Korczak writes How to Love a Child, in which he defines three basic rights of children: the right of today, the right of the child over its own death, and the right of the child to be what it wants to be.[44]
1921
The United States passes the Sheppard-Towner Act, the first major federal law focusing on infant and maternal health. It also provides money for health services for parents and babies.[45]
In Japan-occupied South Korea, political activist and children’s story book author Bang Jeong-hwan founds the Cheondogyo Children’s Association, through which he promotes children’s rights.[46]
1922
Inspired by the 1874 rescue of Mary Ellen Wilson and the 1875 founding of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, around 300 nongovernmental child protection societies are founded in the United States between 1874 and 1922.
Child labor reformer Raymond G. Fuller writes the essay “Child Labor and Child Nature” for Pedagogical Seminary during the campaign to enact national child labor laws. Fuller argues children’s rights are natural rights: “Out of the nature of children arise their needs; and out of children’s needs, children’s rights.”[47]
On May 1, Bang Jeong-hwan and his colleagues at the Cheondogyo Children’s Association declare the world’s first-ever Children’s Day. On May 2, Bang publishes a children’s rights declaration in a South Korean newspaper.[48]
1923
Bang Jeong-hwan founds the monthly children’s magazine Eorini in South Korea.[49] “Eorini” is a term coined by Bang that means “young people who share equal rights as adults.”[50]
South Korea celebrates Children’s Day nationwide.[51]
1924
The League of Nations passes the Geneva Declaration on the Rights of the Child, drafted by Eglantyne Jebb, founder of the Save the Children Fund. The Declaration declares children have the right to: means for their development; special help in times of need; priority for relief; economic freedom and protection from exploitation; and an upbringing that instills social consciousness and duty. This is the first international treaty concerning children’s rights.[52]
The United States passes the Indian Citizenship Act, conferring citizenship on all Native Americans and extending birthright citizenship to Native American children.[53]
1925
International Children’s Day is proclaimed for the first time in Geneva during the World Conference on Child Welfare.
1926
Janusz Korczak launches The Little Review, a weekly newspaper produced “for and by children.” It reaches a circulation of 60,000 and is edited by Korczak and several children.[54]
1927
Researcher Ida Parker conducts a study of adoptions in Boston and finds that nearly 70 percent of them are independent, arranged through attorneys instead of official agencies or governmental organizations. Many unwed mothers advertise their children for sale in newspapers.[55]
1929
The New York Children’s Aid Society stops their orphan trains.[56]
A Colombian physician, Jose Martinez, reidentifies child abuse in clinical terms, the first time since 1857 by Auguste Ambroise Tardieu.[57]
Janusz Korczak writes The Right of the Child to Respect, which includes a critique of corporal punishment of children. Korczak argues that hitting children sets “an example that fosters contempt for the weak. This is bad parenting and sets a bad precedent.”[58]
1933
Children’s rights activist Edna Gladney successfully lobbies to have references to “illegitimacy” removed from birth certificates in Texas.[59]
1935
The United States passes the Social Security Act, providing funding for children and families in need.
The American Youth Congress (AYC) is formed to advocate for youth rights in U.S. politics. AYC is chaired by Communist youth activist William W. Hinckley.
1936
The American Youth Congress (AYC) organizes over 1,000 youth to introduce a Youth Bill of Rights to U.S. Congress.[60] AYC also issues a Declaration of the Rights of American Youth.[61]
AYC chairperson William W. Hinckley authors the pamphlet American Youth Acts: The Story of the American Youth Congress.[62]
1938
The Fair Labor Standards Act prohibits most child labor on a national level in the United States. Like previous child labor bills, the Act’s constitutionality will be challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court, 3 years later in the 1941 case United States v. Darby Lumber Co.
1939
Pioneering Japanese feminist Yamada Waka opens the Hatagaya House for Mothers and Children, a shelter for women and children fleeing abusive homes. This is the first shelter of its kind in Japan. Yamada is greatly influenced by the work of Ellen Key and translates Key’s Century of the Child into Japanese.[63]
1941
In the U.S. Supreme Court case United States v. Darby Lumber Co., the Court overrules previous cases like 1918’s Hammer v. Dagenhart and 1922’s Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Company, that had struck down federal regulation of child labor as unconstitutional. In Darby, the Supreme Court finds the child labor prohibitions in the Fair Labor Standards Act to be constitutional.
1944
The U.S. Supreme Court case Prince v. Massachusetts recognizes children as persons deserving protections separate from their parents.[64]
1946
Injuries to children are documented for the first time in U.S. medical literature. In the American Journal of Roentgenology, pediatric radiologist John Caffey reports on injuries in children he believes are “of traumatic origin.”[65]
The United Nations establishes the International Children’s Emergency Fund, UNICEF, to promote policies and expand access to services that protect all children around the world.
Hungarian pediatrician Emmi Pikler founds the Lóczy Institute in Budapest. The Institute becomes renowned for their approach to infant care, which emphasizes respectful care, autonomy, and trust in babies’ innate abilities as key to healthy child development.[66] Early childhood educator Magda Gerber is mentored by Pikler at the Institute and contributes thousands of hours of research.[67]
1948
The United Nations passes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in which Article 25 entitles parents and children to “special care and assistance” and “social protection.”
1950
Child psychoanalyst Erik Erikson publishes Childhood and Society, in which he explores the social significance of childhood and details the stages of children’s psychosocial development. He also coins the phrase “identity crisis.”
1953
Adoptee rights activist Jean M. Paton establishes Orphan Voyage, a support and search network for adopted children looking for their birth families.[68]
1954
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation of children in public schools violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
A joint resolution by India and Uruguay passes the United Nations General Assembly to encourage all countries to institute a Universal Children’s Day.
Sofia Cavalletti and Gianna Gobbi establish the Catholic children’s program Catechesis of the Good Shepherd based on Montessori principles.
1955
A JAMA article written by Paul V. Woolley and William A. Evans considers whether some childhood injuries could only be the result of repeated abuse.[69]
Nine months before Rosa Parks becomes famous for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin is arrested for the same action.[70]
1957
Black high schoolers Melba Pattillo Beals, Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Thelma Mothershed, Terrence Roberts, and Jefferson Thomas enroll in the previously all-white Little Rock Central High School. When the children—called “The Little Rock Nine”—are prevented from entering the school by Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus and the Arkansas National Guard, President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalizes the National Guard to enforce integration at the school. In retaliation, Faubus orders the Little Rock School District to close all public schools—until the U.S. Supreme Court rules they must be reopened a year late.[71]
1959
The United Nations adopts the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which recognizes—among other rights—children’s rights to education, play, a supportive environment, and health care.
1960
Paul Goodman writes the bestselling Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized System, which proposes that children are among the first casualties of capitalism.[72]
A.S. Neill writes Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing, which argues children can function as democratic actors and make sensible choices.[73]
On November 14, six-year-old Ruby Bridges integrates an all-white elementary school in New Orleans, Louisiana—the youngest African American child to do so. She is escorted by federal marshals.[74]
As federal marshals protect Bridges in New Orleans, a young psychiatrist named Robert Coles witnesses the event. Coles volunteers to support and counsel Bridges and her family.[75]
1962
Pediatrician C. Henry Kempe becomes the first in the American medical community to identify and recognize child abuse, coining the term “Battered Child Syndrome” and drawing further national attention to child abuse.[76]
Kempe attends a meeting of the U.S. Children’s Bureau and recommends “passage of laws requiring doctors to report suspicions of abuse to police or child welfare,” the first four of which are enacted in 1963.[77]
Medievalist Phillippe Ariès writes Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, which details the history of childhood in the West to demonstrate that our modern notion of “childhood”—of a child who must be sheltered from the world—is a recent social construct, just like the nuclear family. For much of history, Ariès argues, all but the youngest children functioned in the world much as adults did.[78]
The national student activist organization Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) adopts the Port Huron Statement at its first national convention. The Statement, written by civil rights and anti-war activist Thomas Hayden, popularizes the term “participatory democracy.”[79]
1963
More than one thousand children skip classes to march to downtown Birmingham, Alabama to discuss the city’s racial segregation policies with the mayor. As “The Children’s Crusade” approaches police lines, hundreds of children are arrested and jailed. When hundreds more children gather the following day for another march, police use overwhelming force to halt the demonstration. Images of children being blasted by high-pressure fire hoses, clubbed by police officers, and attacked by police dogs appear on television and in newspapers, triggering worldwide outrage. Despite the violence, children continue to march and protest. The Children’s Crusade ends only after intervention from the U.S. Department of Justice, with President John F. Kennedy expressing support for federal civil rights legislation.[80]
1964
On February 3, over 360,000 elementary and secondary school students go on a “Freedom Day” strike and attend “freedom schools” (free, makeshift schools for children of color) during a system-wide school boycott of the racially segregated New York public school system. This is the largest civil rights demonstration in U.S. history.[81]
Inspired by Ruby Bridges, Robert Coles publishes Children of Crisis: A Study of Courage and Fear, which explores the experiences of children involved in school desegregation.[82]
1965
Head Start, the oldest and largest federal program providing comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and families, is created and led by children’s rights advocate Jule Sugarman.[83]
1967
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in In re Gault that children under the age of 18 have the right to legal assistance with any criminal charges filed against them.
All U.S. states have enacted child abuse reporting laws.[84]
1968
Paulo Freire publishes Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
A group of 31 young people between the ages of 15 and 23 are wounded and killed on the campus of South Carolina State College in Orangeburg, South Carolina by police officers in the infamous Orangeburg Massacre. The young people were protesting segregation at a local bowling alley. In the aftermath of the killings, the bowling alley and most remaining whites-only places in Orangeburg become desegregated. This is the first instance of police killing student protestors at an American university.[85]
Over 15,000 high school students walk out of seven different schools in East Los Angeles, California, protesting discrepancies in the education of white children and Mexican-American children. Called “the Chicano Blowouts,” these protests are the first major mass protests against racism undertaken by Mexican-Americans in U.S. history. Despite the protests being nonviolent, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee declares 17-year-old high school student and protest leader Harry Gamboa Jr. “one of the hundred most dangerous and violent subversives in the United States.”[86]
1969
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Tinker v. Des Moines that children have the right to free speech in public schools. The Court declares that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”[87]
1970
The children’s liberation movement begins, which aims to shift the focus “from adults’ protection of children to children’s own claims to autonomy.”[88]
Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor is founded in Ann Arbor, Michigan to create “a nationwide movement for youth civil rights, akin to the Black Liberation movement and the growing women’s movement.”[89]
During the 1970s, at least 15 mass-market books promote the ideas of children’s rights and child liberation.[90]
Radical feminist Shulamith Firestone writes a chapter entitled “Down with Childhood” in her groundbreaking book The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, which argues children are an oppressed class suffering under the regime of the patriarchal family.[91] Sadly ,that same chapter defends incest, claiming that, in an ideal world, “relations with children would include as much genital sex as the child was capable of—probably considerably more than we now believe.”[92]
Minister and best-selling author Herbert Lockyer documents all references to children in the Bible in All the Children of the Bible.
1971
The United States passes the 26th Amendment to its Constitution, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18.[93]
Florida becomes the first U.S. state to implement a child abuse reporting hotline.
Adoptee rights activist Florence Anna Fisher founds the Adoptees Liberty Movement Association (ALMA), with the aim of pressuring states to open their adoption records.[94]
Paul Adams publishes Children’s Rights: Toward the Liberation of the Child.
Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor successfully persuades their city council to drop its curfew laws.
1972
Massachusettsbecomes the second state to ban corporal punishment of children in public schools—105 years after New Jersey passed the first ban in 1867.[95]
At the age of 15, Sonia Yaco becomes the Human Rights Party candidate for the Ann Arbor, Michigan school board. She is the youngest documented candidate ever for a publicly elected school board seat in the United States. Unfortunately, regulations state only adults can run for school board. Yaco’s campaign nonetheless earns 1,363 votes as a write-in candidate—8% of the total. [96]
An advocacy group from Boston, Massachusetts named Gay Men’s Liberation drives to the Democratic National Convention in Miami, Florida to distribute a list of 10 demands. One of the demands is an end to age discrimination against children, which requires collective child-rearing, the end of parental rights, and respect for children’s rights.[97]
The Gay International Youth Society of George Washington High School is formed, the first known gay-straight alliance at school.[98]
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rules in Mills v. Board of Education of District of Columbia that children with disabilities are guaranteed free public education.[99]
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania decrees in Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children (PARC) v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that education should be provided for all children regardless of any differences or disabilities.[100] This decree will become the basis for the 1975 Education for All Handicapped Children Act.[101]
1973
Enrollment at Native American assimilation boarding schools reaches its peak with 60,000 Native American children enrolled in these schools.[102]
The International Labour Organization adopts Convention 138, setting 18 years old as the minimum age for undertaking work that might be hazardous to a person’s health, safety, or morals.
Marian Wright Edelman founds the Children’s Defense Fund. Future First Lady and Senator Hillary Clinton serves as a staff attorney for the organization.[103]
David Gottleib publishes Children’s Liberation.
Hillary Clinton writes an article entitled “Children Under the Law” for Harvard Educational Review. In the article, Clinton argues that, while the law has reflected a social consensus that children’s best interests are synonymous with those of their parents, we need to consider the substantive and procedural rights of children as a discrete interest group.[104] The article creates a furor among conservatives.[105]
1974
Early homeschooling proponent John Holt publishes Escape from Childhood: The Needs and Rights of Children, arguing that children should have “the right to do, in general, what any adult may legally do.”[106] For Holt, this sadly includes sexual acts with adults. In fact, he argues that children can consent to such acts.[107]
Child liberation theorist Richard Farson writes Birthrights: A Bill of Rights for Children, where he contends that, “Our world is not a good place for children. Every institution in our society severely discriminates against them.”[108] To his shame, Farson defends child sexual abuse and incest, arguing that, “when the experience actually stimulates the child erotically,” it “may favor rather than inhibit the development of social capabilities and mental health in the so-called victims.”[109]
The United States enacts the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA). CAPTA establishes national definitions regarding child abuse and neglect and assigns certain responsibilities to the federal government, particularly relating to data collection and technical assistance. It also authorizes funding to public agencies and nonprofit organizations that undertake activities to prevent, assess, investigate, prosecute, and treat child abuse and neglect.
1975
The United States passes the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, requiring all public schools accepting federal funds to provide equal access to education and one free meal a day for children with disabilities.
The United States passes the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, which guarantees Native American tribes the opportunity to determine their own futures and the education of their children.
Psychiatrists Chester M. Pierce and Gail B. Allen are the first to describe and explore the concept of “childism,” which they define as “the automatic presumption of superiority of any adult over any child,” which “results in the adult’s needs, desires, hopes, and fears taking unquestioned precedence over those of the child.”[110]
1976
The United Nations adopts the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 6(5) of the treaty bans child executions: “Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age.” The United States does not ratify the ICCPR until 1992.
1977
On January 26, French newspaper Le Monde publishes an open letter written by noted pedophile and self-described child molester Gabriel Matzneff and signed by 69 supposedly progressive intellectuals. The letter defends three men detained by French law enforcement for raping children and fallaciously argues children can consent to sexual acts with adults because children can be held responsible for crimes they commit. The open letter’s signatories include existential philosopher and feminist activist Simone de Beauvoir, philosopher and Marxist activist Jean-Paul Sartre, and postmodern philosopher Gilles Deleuze.[111]
Beatrice and Ronald Gross publish The Children’s Rights Movement: Overcoming the Oppression of Young People.
C. Henry Kempe delivers a lecture at a national pediatric conference titled “Sexual Abuse: Another Hidden Pediatric Problem.” Before the lecture, people reported less sexual abuse than the actual occurrence. But Dr. Kempe recognized the frequency of child sexual abuse and sexual exploitation. He also confronted the medical profession’s lack of initiative to address the issue.[112]
1978
The United States passes the Indian Child Welfare Act, preventing the removal of Native American children from their families and communities.[113]
Psychologist Jack Flasher coins the term “adultism,” which he defines as “the abuse by adults of the power they have over children.”[114]
Magda Gerber and pediatric neurologist Thomas Forrest found a nonprofit, Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE), in Los Angeles, California. RIE is a worldwide membership organization that aims to improve the quality of infant care and education by showing respect for a baby’s experience and encouraging parents to treat their children as active participants instead of passive objects. The RIE approach to parenting is called “respectful parenting” and later inspires the work of parent educator Janet Lansbury.[115]
1979
Alice Miller publishes Prisoners of Childhood, also titled The Drama of the Gifted Child.
The United Nations proclaims 1979 as the International Year of the Child to mark the 20th anniversary of the 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child.
Sweden becomes the first country in the world to prohibit all physical punishment of children.[116]
Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor disbands.[117]
1980
Howard S. Cohen publishes Equal Rights for Children.
1982
James and Kathleen McGinnis publish Parenting for Peace and Justice.
1983
Alice Miller publishes For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence.
Sofia Cavalletti writes The Religious Potential of the Child: Experiencing Scripture and Liturgy with Young Children.
1984
The American Medical Association releases guidelines for diagnosing child abuse.
Alice Miller publishes Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society’s Betrayal of the Child.
Black feminist philosopher bell hooks writes about “revolutionary parenting” in Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. This form of parenting respects children’s rights to effective, loving childcare and radically restructures society so that women are not exclusively responsible for providing that care.[118]
1986
Robert Coles publishes The Moral Life of Children and The Political Life of Children.
1988
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Thompson v. Oklahoma that the death penalty cannot be imposed on child offenders younger than 16 years old at the time of their offenses.
Children and young adults with queer parents attend a conference organized by the Family Equality Council, one of the first times a group of people with queer parents networked together. The young people organize, and their work leads to the formation of Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere (COLAGE) in 1999.[119]
Godly Play founders Jerome W. Berryman and Sonja M. Stewart create a series of lessons plans, the first of which are published in the book Young Children and Worship. Later, Berryman will further develop these ideas into the Godly Play method. According to Berryman, Godly Play is “a process of leading children into a form of deep play that leads to wonder” about Christianity.[120]
1989
The United Nations General Assembly adopts the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
1990
The United Nations hosts the World Summit for Children in New York. The largest gathering of world leaders ever assembled, this landmark event is the first time in history when a Summit-level meeting is held exclusively to address children’s issues.[121]
The 1975 Education for All Handicapped Children Act is renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and reauthorized. The reauthorized Act requires children with disabilities to be involved in developing their school transition plans. It also requires schools to consider those children’s interests and preferences.[122]
Robert Coles publishes The Spiritual Life of Children.
1991
Protestant theologian Janet Pais publishes the first book dedicated to child liberation theology, Suffer the Children: A Theology of Liberation by a Victim of Child Abuse. Much of her book is a response to Alice Miller’s ideas.
Catholic theologian Joseph A. Grassi publishes a book on child liberation theology, Children’s Liberation: A Biblical Perspective.
Jerome W. Berryman receives a Lilly Endowment grant to study the history of the Montessori approach to religious education in Italy.[123] Berryman also publishes his seminal book Godly Play: A Way of Religious Education.
Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar’s book Unless You Become Like This Child is published after his 1988 death. This book develops an analogy between the insights of early-childhood psychology and the life of Christian childlikeness.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child is formed by the United Nations to monitor and report on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
1992
The United States finally ratifies the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 26 years after it was unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. Despite ratification, the United States officially reserves the right to execute children.[124]
Douglas Sturm writes “On the Suffering and Rights of Children: Toward a Theology of Childhood Liberation” for CrossCurrents.
1994
Mary Ann Mason writes From Father’s Property to Children’s Rights: The History of Child Custody in the United States.
1995
Child Rights International Network is founded. This international network supports the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and its implementation.
Hillary Clinton writes It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us, which advocates for comprehensive early education programs for disadvantaged children and their families.[125]
At the United Nations’ World Conference on Women in Beijing, countries unanimously adopt the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. This is “the most progressive blueprint ever for advancing the rights of not only women but girls,” according to the United Nations. The Beijing Declaration is the first to specifically call out girls’ rights.[126]
Youth worker and children’s rights advocate John Bell writes an article, “Understanding Adultism,” that defines adultism as “behaviors and attitudes based on the assumptions that adults are better than young people, and entitled to act upon young people without agreement.” Bell contends that adultism is a major obstacle to developing positive youth-adult relationships.[127]
Janet Lansbury joins the Board of Directors of Magda Gerber and Thomas Forrest’s nonprofit, Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE).
1997
The United States passes the Taxpayer Relief Act, establishing the federal child tax credit.
Magda Gerber co-writes Your Self-Confident Baby: How to Encourage Your Child’s Natural Abilities from the Very Start.
Jerome W. Berryman founds the Center for the Theology of Childhood to inspire research and theological discourse on the spirituality of children.[128]
1998
Magda Gerber co-writes Dear Parent: Caring for Infants With Respect, in which she argues that, “Respecting a child means treating even the youngest infant as a unique human being, not as an object.”
Oregon voters approve Measure 58, making Oregon the first state to unconditionally open previously sealed records to adult adoptees.[129]
1999
English theologian Adrian Thatcher publishes Marriage After Modernity: Christian Marriage in Postmodern Times, his first book to address child liberation theology. Here, Thatcher proposes using the progressive field of liberation theology to argue for a conservative position: that preserving heterosexual and monogamous marriage is the best means to putting children first.[130]
Ruby Bridges publishes Through My Eyes, where she recounts the story of her involvement in the racial integration of her New Orleans public school in 1960.
Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere (COLAGE) becomes a national non-profit organization.
2000
bell hooks writes about “feminist parenting” in Feminism is for Everybody, which she defines as raising children without sexism and rejecting domination as a parenting tool.[131]
The National Youth Rights Association is founded, which becomes the nation’s largest organization fighting for the rights of all young people.[132]
2001
Law professor Dorothy E. Roberts publishes Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare, in which she argues the United States’ child protection services are “a state-run program that disrupts, restructures, and polices Black families,” disproportionately and systematically demolishing Black families.[133]
The term “Child Theology” is coined in Penang, Malaysia.[134]
Professor of religion Marcia J. Bunge publishes her first landmark book on children and religion, The Child in Christian Thought.
2002
The Child Theology Movement officially begins. The movement, taking its cue from the story of Jesus centering children during a theological discussion in the Gospel of Matthew, urges “that the child be put in the midst of theological talk and thought.” The movement later becomes a charitable organization based in the United Kingdom. The organization’s directors are Marcia J. Bunge, DJ Konz, Victor Nakah, Bill Prevette, Sunny Tan, Keith White, and Haddon Willmer.[135]
At the United Nations Special Session on Children, child delegates address the General Assembly for the first time.[136]
President George W. Bush’s administration insists that the United Nations delete all references to children’s rights in the official documents produced from the United Nations Special Session on Children and substitute the phrase “children’s interests.”[137]
Sofia Cavalletti writes The Religious Potential of the Child: 6 to 12 Years Old.
2004
Adrian Thatcher revisits the topic of child liberation theology with an online essay entitled, “A Theology of Liberation for Children.”[138]
Kathleen Marshall and Paul Parvis publish Honouring Children: The Human Rights of the Child in Christian Perspective.
Boz Tchividjian, Victor Vieth, and Diane Langberg found GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment) to help churches address child sexual abuse in Christian organizations.
2005
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Roper v. Simmons that it is unconstitutional to impose capital punishment for crimes committed while under the age of 18, finally abolishing the death penalty for children.
Kimberly Ann Shinabery writes “Blessed are the children: a liberation theology for abused and neglected children” for her Iliff School of Theology dissertation.
Practical theology professor Joyce Ann Mercer publishes Welcoming Children: A Practical Theology of Childhood, which includes extensive examination of the impact of capitalism on American children.
Parental rights advocate and child protection critic Martin Guggenheim writes What’s Wrong with Children’s Rights, a broadside “against children’s rights policies that undermine parental authority.”[139] In his book, Guggenheim cites Dorothy E. Roberts’ 2001 book Shattered Bonds.[140]
2006
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child issues a directive calling physical punishment of children “legalized violence” that should be eliminated in all settings through “legislative, administrative, social and educational measures.”[141]
2007
In Theology and Families, Adrian Thatcher promotes child liberation theology once again, using it to justify the regressive idea that intact, nuclear families are the best families and thus the model for Christians to follow.[142]
Research psychologist Robert Epstein writes an article for Scientific American entitled “The Myth of the Teen Brain” that argues teenagers’ emotional problems and misbehavior are not due to incompletely developed brains but rather the ways society infantilizes and acts paternalistically towards young people, creating an “artificial extension of childhood.”[143]
Gentle parenting advocate Sarah Ockwell-Smith starts offering classes in gentle parenting out of her home, which evolves into workshops attended by thousands of parents. These classes and workshops teach the importance of nurturance, empathy, and meeting the needs of children, as well as respecting babies and children in the same way we respect adults.[144] Ockwell-Smith is credited with coining the term “gentle parenting.”[145]
Jerome W. Berryman establishes the Godly Play Foundation. The Center for the Theology of Childhood becomes part of the Foundation.[146]
2008
Due to the advocacy efforts of the West Virginia Youth Disability Caucus, West Virginia becomes the first state to require K-12 schools to teach children the history of the disability rights movement.[147]
Marcia J. Bunge publishes The Child in the Bible.
Barbara Bennett Woodhouse publishes Hidden in Plain Sight: The Tragedy of Children’s Rights from Ben Franklin to Lionel Tate.
2009
The American Board of Pediatrics establishes a Child Abuse Pediatrics subspecialty. This year, 191 pediatricians become certified in this new subspecialty.[148]
Marcia J. Bunge publishes Children and Childhood in World Religions: Primary Texts and Sources.
2010
The United States passes Rosa’s Law, which replaces instances of “mental retardation” in law with “intellectual disability.” The law is named after and inspired by the advocacy of 9-year-old Rosa Marcellino, a girl with Down syndrome.[149]
2011
The United Nations General Assembly adopts Resolution 66/170 to declare October 11 as the International Day of the Girl Child. This day recognizes girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world.[150]
2012
Elisabeth Young-Bruehl publishes Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children, using the word “childism” to describe abuse and oppression of children.[151]
Marcia J. Bunge publishes Children, Adults, and Shared Responsibilities: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Perspectives.
Pediatrician and future Surgeon General of California Nadine Burke Harris founds the Center for Youth Wellness. The Center’s purpose is creating a clinical model that recognizes the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on children’s health and provides effective treatment for children’s toxic stress.[152]
As of this year, thirty countries have banned physical punishment of children in all settings, including the home. The legal bans typically are used as public education tools instead of prosecuting parents who spank their children.[153]
15-year-old Pakistani student Malala Yousafzai is shot on a school bus by the Taliban due to her advocacy for the education of women and children.[154]
2013
Malala Yousafzai writes a bestselling memoir, I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban. Millions of copies are sold.[155]
Julie Faith Parker writes Valuable and Vulnerable: Children in the Hebrew Bible, Especially the Elisha Cycle. Her book “offers and demonstrates a new interpretive approach (childist interpretation) to biblical stories involving child characters.”[156]
Boz Tchividjian publishes Protecting Children From Abuse in the Church.
Sarah Ockwell-Smith writes her first book on gentle parenting, ToddlerCalm: A Guide for Calmer Babies and Happier Parents.
Homeschool alumni Kathryn Brightbill, Rachel Coleman, Heather Doney, Kieryn Darkwater, and R.L. Stollar launch the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, an organization to advocate for homeschooled children’s rights.[157]
2014
Malala Yousafzai receives the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the youngest Nobel Prize laureate in history at the age of 17.[158]
Gentle parenting advocate L.R. Knost writes Jesus, The Gentle Parent, which examines mainstream Christian parenting practices and the doctrinal beliefs behind them and provides guidance on gentle parenting.
Janet Lansbury writes two books on respectful parenting this year: Elevating Child Care: A Guide to Respectful Parenting and No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame.
2015
The U.S. Supreme Court cites children’s well-being as justification for overturning state bans on same-sex marriage in the case Obergefell v. Hodges. The case is thus seen by child advocates as a landmark decision with regards to children’s rights and interests.[159]
Taiwanese exvangelical Cindy Wang Brandt creates the Raising Children Unfundamentalist Facebook group. By 2024, the group has over 31,000 members.
All member nations of the United Nations ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child except for the United States.[160]
Exvangelical theologian and child advocate R.L. Stollar begins writing on child liberation theology.[161]
Youth advocate and author Adam Fletcher writes Facing Adultism. Fletcher defines adultism as “any bias towards adults that results in discrimination against young people.”[162]
Law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw co-authors the report Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced, and Underprotected, which documents the disproportionate impact of overly punitive discipline policies on Black girls and other girls at school.[163]
12-year-old Thandiwe Abdullah co-founds the Black Lives Matter Los Angeles Youth Vanguard after noticing they were one of only a few children participating in Black Lives Matter. “I kind of felt like I didn’t really have a place because I’m a child,” they wrote in an op-ed for Bustle. Abdullah’s work also leads to the creation of Black Lives Matter in Schools.[164]
2016
The U.S. federal child tax credit is estimated to have lifted about 3 million children out of poverty.[165]
Cindy Wang Brandt creates the Unfundamentalist Parenting blog on Patheos along with Anna Register, R.L. Stollar, and Stephen Mattson.
The collective Stinney Distro begins publishing the NO! Against Adult Supremacy zine. The first edition features articles by Samantha Godwin, Kathleen Nicole O’Neal, Cevin Soling, Damien Sojoyner, and Marc Silverstein.[166]
Professor Elizabeth Gershoff and her colleagues publish the results of a meta-analysis of the effects of corporal punishment on children. The studies included in the meta-analysis involve more than 160,000 children over a 50-year period. The results clearly prove that spanking children is harmful. The more children are spanked, the more likely they are to experience anti-social behavior, aggression, mental health problems, and cognitive difficulties. The effects of spanking children are indistinguishable from the effects of physically abusing children.[167]
2017
Cindy Wang Brandt launches the Facebook page, Parenting Forward. By 2024, the page has over 65,000 followers.
Child liberation theologian and intergenerational worship expert Rebecca Stevens-Walter begins writing on child liberation theology.[168]
The Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota launches the Zero Abuse Project, a 501c3 public charity committed to education, training, and survivor support to eradicate child sex abuse and remedy its resulting harms.
Boz Tchividjian and Shira M. Berkovits publish The Child Safeguarding Policy Guide for Churches and Ministries.
Professor and journalist Stacey Patton writes Spare the Kids: Why Whupping Children Won’t Save Black America. In an interview on the book’s critique of corporal punishment of children, Patton argues that, “There’s absolutely no evidence that Black people in West Africa treated their children with this kind of ritualistic violence prior to contact with European missionaries. We need to interrogate this theology.”[169]
Dog Section Press publishes Stinney Distro’s entire NO! Against Adult Supremacy zine collection as an anthology book.[170]
2018
Delaware becomes the first U.S. state to ban child marriage.[171]
After the February school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, high school students from the school organize March for Our Lives in support of gun control. Turnout for the march in Washington, D.C. is estimated to be over 2 million, making it one of the largest protests in U.S. history.[172]
Inspired by March for Our Lives, Swedish high school student Greta Thunberg decides to skip school until the Swedish government reduces carbon emissions in accordance with the Paris Agreement. Thunberg protests for weeks, beginning the “School Strike for Climate.” Her strike inspires tens of thousands of other young people to join her and climate school strikes spread to over 270 cities around the world.[173]
Wartburg Theological Seminary’s Craig Nessan writes the first academic journal article ever on child liberation theology as a field, entitled “Child Liberation Theology,” for Currents in Theology and Mission. Nessan discusses the work of Pais and Stollar.
Victor Vieth publishes On This Rock: A Call to Center the Christian Response to Child Abuse on the Life and Works of Jesus.
Nadine Burke Harris publishes The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-term Effects of Childhood Adversity, which advocates for universal ACE screening in pediatrics.[174]
2019
Sixteen child petitioners from 12 countries, including School Strike for Climate founder Greta Thunberg, present a landmark official complaint to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child to protest lack of government action on the climate crisis. The children allege that nations’ failure to tackle the climate crisis constitutes a violation of child rights.[175]
Cindy Wang Brandt publishes Parenting Forward: How to Raise Children with Justice, Mercy, and Kindness.
Emily McFarlan Miller publishes the article “Parenting after faith shift, progressive Christians look for new resources” for Religion News Service.[176]
Six U.S. states no longer exempt clergy and other religious leaders from laws requiring professionals such as teachers and doctors to report information about alleged child abuse to police or child welfare officials, leaving 44 states where they are exempt.[177]
Vermont becomes the first state to remove time limits for child sex crime lawsuits.[178]
The Jacob Wetterling Resource Center (JWRC) and the National Child Protection Training Center (NCPTC) become a part of the Zero Abuse Project.
Philosopher and childhood studies professor John Wall founds the Childism Institute. Unlike previous uses of the word “childism” by Pierce and Allen as well as Young-Bruehl, Wall and the Childism Institute use the word positively, meaning, “feminism but for children.”[179]
Democratic Representative Ayanna Pressley from Massachusetts proposes lowering the federal voting age to 16.[180]
2020
Shattered Bonds author Dorothy E. Roberts popularizes the term “family policing system” to reference child protective services and links ending child protective services with abolitionism.[181]
2021
Columbia University’s law school hosts a symposium to honor Dorothy E. Roberts’ Shattered Bonds on its 20th anniversary, with many attorneys, professors, and activists praising the book’s influence.[182]
The conservative American Enterprise Institute publishes an essay written by more than a dozen child protection professionals across the ideological spectrum. Entitled “What Child Protection Is For,” the essay argues that, while “the legacy of racial injustice is evident in all aspects of our society” (including child protection services), “the claims made by those calling for the abolition of our child protection system range from questionable to demonstrably false.” The essay is a direct response to Roberts and Shattered Bonds.[183]
The Coalition for Responsible Home Education (CRHE) publishes a Bill of Rights for Homeschooled Children. The Bill of Rights is inspired by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.[184]
Rightwing evangelicals Katy Faust and Stacy Manning publish the faux-children’s rights book, Them Before Us: Why We Need a Global Children’s Rights Movement. The book co-opts children’s rights language to promote traditional evangelical causes.[185]
Rohan Nelson reviews Janet Pais’s book on child liberation theology, Suffer the Children, thirty years after it was first published for Currents in Theology and Mission.
Marcia J. Bunge publishes Child Theology: Diverse Methods and Global Perspectives. Chapter One, written by Craig Nessan, is entitled “Attending to the Cries of Children in Liberation Theologies” and references the work of Pais and Stollar.
Philosophy professor and author Lorna Finlayson begins writing about and discussing child liberation, first for an article in London Review of Books[186] and later in an interview by Oxford Political Review.[187]
Kathleen Nicole O’Neal, one of the original and frequent contributors to Stinney Distro’s NO! Against Adult Supremacy zine and an author for the National Youth Rights Association, promotes the work of self-proclaimed pedophilia advocate Tom O’Carroll.[188]
2022
The Washington Post publishes an exposé on how evangelical homeschoolers laid the groundwork for the modern parental rights movement.[189]
Sophie Lewis publishes Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation, in which she articulates why “abolition entails changing everything about the family, too.”[190]
Scholar and artist carla joy bergman publishes Trust Kids! Stories on Youth Autonomy and Confronting Adult Supremacy.
Thirty-three US. states have outlawed the permanent, surgical sterilization of children with disabilities, leaving 17 states where forced sterilization of children remains legal.[191]
Seventeen U.S. states no longer exempt clergy and other religious leaders from laws requiring professionals such as teachers and doctors to report information about alleged child abuse to police or child welfare officials, leaving 33 states where they are exempt.[192]
At the Religious Education Association’s Annual Meeting, religious trauma expert Hannah Sutton-Adams discusses religious trauma and abuse experienced in childhood. Sutton-Adams mentions child liberation theology in her presentation, specifically the work of Pais, Stollar, and Nessan.[193]
2023
The Washington Post continues their exploration of the modern parental rights movement with an article on evangelical homeschool advocate Michael Farris and how he “made parental rights a GOP rallying cry.” The article cites R.L. Stollar.[194]
R.L. Stollar publishes a book on child liberation theology, The Kingdom of Children: A Liberation Theology. Cindy Wang Brandt writes the book’s foreword.
Nadra Nittle writes bell hooks’ Spiritual Vision: Buddhist, Christian, and Feminist, which explores how hooks’ “spiritual vision as a Buddhist Christian not only influenced hooks’ commitment to child liberation theology, but also to feminism.”[195]
Kathryn Post writes “Child liberation theology says God is a child, too” for Religion News Service.[196]
Benjamin Perry dedicates a significant portion of Chapter Nine of his new book, Cry, Baby: Why Our Tears Matter, to the topic of child liberation theology and Rebecca Stevens-Walter’s work in the field.
Sarah Ockwell-Smith writes Because I Said So: Why Society is Childist and How Breaking the Cycle of Discrimination Towards Children Can Change the World.
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel A. Cardona issues an official statement calling for an end to corporal punishment of children in schools.[197] The American Academy of Pediatrics issues a similar statement.[198]
2024
New Hampshire bans child marriage, becoming the 13th U.S. state to do so.[199]
Thirty-three states have banned the use of corporal punishment on children in public schools.[200]
President Joe Biden issues a formal apology from the U.S. government to Native American communities due to the history of assimilation board schools.[201]
The United States passes the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act, championed by socialite and child abuse survivor Paris Hilton. The Act establishes an interagency federal work group on youth residential programs (otherwise known as the “trouble teen industry”) to support and implement best practices regarding the health, safety, care, treatment, and appropriate placement of youth in such programs.[202]
Kathryn Post writes “Adults raised in the ‘Christian parenting empire’ of the ’70s-’90s push back” for Religion News Service.[203]
Bob Smietana and Jack Jenkins include R.L. Stollar as one of “The new leaders in the world of faith to follow in 2025” for Religion News Service, noting he is “one of a handful of theologians whose observations about the rights of children are making inroads in churches, seminaries and parenting groups.”[204]
Lorna Finlayson signs a publishing contract for her book Child Liberation: The Oppression of Children and the Case for Change, to be released in 2026.[205]
Theologian Graham Adams publishes a book that discusses child liberation theology, God the Child: Small, Weak, and Curious Subversions. In his book, Adams contends that the Kingdom of God—described by Jesus in the Christian Gospels—is better served by metaphors of God as child than as adult or parent.[206]
Rights-based parenting educator Eloise Rickman publishes a book on child liberation, It’s Not Fair: Why It’s Time for a Grown-Up Conversation About How Adults Treat Children. Her book “analyses the ways in which children are ignored, repressed or actively harmed in many aspects of society.”[207]
Social media and children’s show star Rachel Anne Accurso, also known as Ms. Rachel, launches a fundraiser through Save the Children for children in war zones. When she includes Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip in her fundraiser, she is bullied and attacked online.[208]
2025
As of this year, the 35th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the United States remains the only UN member state to not ratify the Convention.[209]
Australia begins enforcing the world’s first social media ban for children, a move decried by numerous human rights organizations as a violation of children’s rights.[210]
The rightwing doxxing organization StopAntisemitism declares Ms. Rachel “Antisemite of the Year” for her advocacy for Palestinian children.[211]
Sixty countries at the United Nations support a new global treaty proposal, initiated by Sierra Leone and the Dominican Republic, to guarantee every child’s right to a free education.[212]
Pediatrician and professor of child health Peter D. Sidebotham coins the term “child-attentive theologies.” Child-attentive is Sidebotham’s proposed label for theologies that seek to elevate or empower children in theological discourse and community action and practice. Sidebotham includes several child-related theologies under this umbrella, including theologies of childhood, child theology, and child liberation theology.[213]
Hannah Sutton-Adams is named Assistant Director of the Center for Theology and Childhood at the Godly Play Foundation.[214]
Writer and liberal arts professor Madeline Lane-McKinley publishes Solidarity With Children: An Essay Against Adult Supremacy, arguing that adults and children must be allies and collaborators in remaking the world.[215]
*****
Citations
[1] Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, Hidden in Plain Sight: The Tragedy of Children’s Rights from Ben Franklin to Lionel Tate, Princeton University Press, 2008, p. 60.
[2] Mary Ann Mason, excerpt from From Father’s Property to Children’s Rights: The History of Child Custody in the United States, 1994, https://www.law.berkeley.edu/our-faculty/faculty-sites/mary-ann-mason/books/from-fathers-property-to-childrens-rights-a-history-of-child-custody-preview/, accessed on December 22, 2025.
[3] PBS, “The Origins of Adoption in America,” https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/daughter-origins-adoption-america/, accessed on December 26, 2025.
[4] PBS, “The Origins of Adoption in America,” https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/daughter-origins-adoption-america/, accessed on December 26, 2025.
[5] Derek W. Black, “The American Right to Education: The Northwest Ordinance, Reconstruction, and the Current Challenge,” Poverty and Race Research Action Council, March 22, 2021, https://www.prrac.org/the-american-right-to-education-the-northwest-ordinance-reconstruction-and-the-current-challenge/, accessed on December 25, 2025.
[6] Thomas Spence, The Rights of Infants, 1797, reproduced on the Marxists Internet Archive, https://www.marxists.org/history/england/britdem/people/spence/infants/infants.htm, accessed on December 21, 2025.
[7] Equal Justice Initiative, “Congress Creates Fund to ‘Civilize’ Native American People,” https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/mar/3, accessed on December 25, 2025.
[8] PBS, “The Origins of Adoption in America,” https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/daughter-origins-adoption-america/, accessed on December 26, 2025.
[9] Ariana Figueroa, “Kids at work: In New Hampshire and other states, officials try to ease child labor laws at behest of industry,” New Hampshire Public Radio, April 11, 2023, https://www.nhpr.org/business-and-economy/2023-04-11/kids-at-work-in-new-hampshire-and-other-states-officials-try-to-ease-child-labor-laws-at-behest-of-industry, accessed on December 21, 2025.
[10] Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, Hidden in Plain Sight: The Tragedy of Children’s Rights from Ben Franklin to Lionel Tate, Princeton University Press, 2008, p. 71.
[11] Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, Hidden in Plain Sight: The Tragedy of Children’s Rights from Ben Franklin to Lionel Tate, Princeton University Press, 2008, p. 60.
[12] PBS, “The Origins of Adoption in America,” https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/daughter-origins-adoption-america/, accessed on December 26, 2025.
[13] The Adoption History Project at the University of Oregon, “Ida Parker, Fit and Proper?, 1927,” https://pages.uoregon.edu/adoption/studies/ParkerFP.htm, accessed on December 26, 2025.
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