Can the justifications for adult relationship rights elaborated in Chapter 4 be extended to the case of children's relationships, such that something approaching equal treatment of children might be warranted? Political theory to date, in addition to devoting little attention to intimate associations in general, has been almost entirely silent about family formation and dissolution for children in particular. From the outset, political philosophers have focused principally, if not exclusively, on issues of pressing concern to adults in the public sphere outside the home. On the occasions when political philosophers have made mention of children, it has typically been with reference to children's formal education, because that was the one aspect of children's lives they deemed relevant to the public sphere and of interest to the state. Education was the means by which children became future citizens, so both private individuals and the state had interests at stake. And discussion of education has principally been adult centered, focused on the desires of parents to control their children's upbringing and state interests in producing a certain kind of citizen.

There has been more discussion of child rearing among political theorists in recent decades than ever before, but it has remained largely confined to schooling, and the perspectives most prevalent are still adult-centered ones, focused either on the rights of parents or on statist aims such as producing tolerant future citizens.