In this article, the author explores the performances and practices of motherhood and childhood as they materialize in a private elementary school setting in Ottawa, Canada. The author analyses the ways the ideology of intensive mothering and the intensification of children's lives intersect and inform one another in this setting. She argues that these mutually reinforcing conceptualizations are maintained through surveillance and mother blame that result in narrowing possibilities for the lives of both women and children rather than creating spaces of childhood and motherhood envisaged in a capacious and mutually productive way.
The photo that graces the cover of this issue of the Canadian Journal of Children's Rights/Revue Canadienne des Droits des Enfants comes from the Hon. Landon Pearson's personal collection. It is a photo of the young people who accompanied her and other government officials on the Canadian delegation to the 2002 UN General Assembly Special Session on Children held in New York. While world leaders met to discuss and adopt a resolution called A World Fit for Children, these young people met separately with other children and young people from the countries represented at the Special Session, to create their own vision. They called their document, A World Fit for Us. i The young people's words in A World Fit for Us display a sophisticated understanding of children's rights in dynamic local and global contexts. Inspired by their lived experiences and awareness of the plight of children and young people around the world, A World Fit for Us foreshadows some of the issues that persist for children and young people in 2022, despite a difference of twenty years. These issues include concern for environmental degradation, violence, war, health care, and poverty. While they remain prominent, many other issues have emerged over 20 years to change the landscape of children's and young people's lives in Canada and globally in ways that highlight the interconnectedness of these lives brought into stark relief by the COVID-19 pandemic.As I write these introductory remarks, so much that is happening in the world resonates with the words of children and young people in the World Fit for Us document.Countries are at war, including Ukraine as well as many other conflicts around the world.In Iran over the past several months, anti-government protesters, including young people, have escalated their fight for human rights, the unrest triggered by the death of a young woman in police custody. At the same time, the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United
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