3 - Children and European Union law: instrumentalism, protection and empowerment

Summary

The European Union has yet to create a fully fledged children's policy. It is, at present, a policy of ‘bits and pieces’ with no cohering theme or approach. Indeed, there has been little reflective thinking about children at all. In this policy vacuum, it is perhaps not surprising that the dominant ideology of the family, and children's roles within ‘the family’, has thoughtlessly shaped Union law and policy. Nonetheless, novel and more progressive ways of thinking about children, and their rights and interests, are beginning to be reflected in Union law. This chapter considers first these newer ways of thinking about children's rights and interests, before going on to examine the Union's laws and policies relating to children. The final section examines how the Union's Charter of Fundamental Rights and a rights-based approach to children's law and policy provide the most appropriate way forward for the Union.

Family ideology and children's rights

The dominant ideology of the family prescribes specific familial roles not just for men and women, but also for children. This is the hierarchical, private family in which the concept of parental autonomy affords parents sole charge over their children. In such a conceptualisation, the Enlightenment view of the child, as ‘becoming’ an adult, rather than simply ‘being’ a child, remains dominant. The paradigmatic child is the dependent child, shielded from the public realm by rightfully protective parents: they are projects for adults to shape.