…the issues confronting parents today can\u2019t be dismissed as mere generational prejudices. There is reason to believe that childhood itself is now in crisis….<\/p>\n
the 20th century also witnessed another momentous shift, one that would ultimately threaten the welfare of children: the rise of the for-profit corporation. Lawyers, policy makers and business lobbied successfully for various rights and entitlements traditionally connected, legally, with personhood. New laws recognized corporations as legal \u201d\u201d albeit artificial \u201d\u201d \u201cpersons,\u201d\u009d granting them many of the same legal rights and privileges as human beings. In an eerie parallel with the child-protective efforts, \u201cthe best interests of the corporation\u201d\u009d was soon introduced as a legal precept.<\/p>\n
A clash between these two newly created legal entities \u201d\u201d children and corporations \u201d\u201d was, perhaps, inevitable. Century-of-the-child reformers sought to resolve conflicts in favor of children. But over the last 30 years there has been a dramatic reversal: corporate interests now prevail. Deregulation, privatization, weak enforcement of existing regulations and legal and political resistance to new regulations have eroded our ability, as a society, to protect children.<\/p>\n