ABSTRACT
Fifty years ago there were disputes over children—many fewer than there are now because there were many fewer divorces and we were a less rights-conscious society—but their character was very different from those of today. In 1945 disputes about children were about rights. Of children's legislation passed since the end of World War II, only the 1989 Act addresses the status of children. The Act has a number of sources, of which Gillick is one and Cleveland another, and is the product of a number of value positions. To Cleveland's assertion that 'the child is a person and not an object of concern', the Act responds with a package of children's rights measures, but it does so within a framework which emphasizes family autonomy and within a network of practices which prioritizes family support over child protection. Parent—child relations were now to be characterized in terms of parental responsibility rather than parental rights.
