Collective Care as Children's Rights Infrastructure

Sor Juana's life in the convent, despite its constraints, demonstrated an alternative to nuclear family isolation—a collective structure where intellectual work was valued and community supported her survival. Contemporary children's rights must interrogate the assumption that individual parents bear sole responsibility for children, which intensifies inequality and leaves vulnerable children unprotected. Collective care models—whether historical (extended families, Indigenous kinship structures, communal childrearing) or contemporary (community schools, public childcare, neighborhood accountability)—distribute responsibility and ensure no child falls through individual family failure. This framework argues that children's rights are best secured through shared community investment: universal access to nutrition, healthcare, education, mentorship, and safe spaces. Applied to children's rights, this means advocating for public infrastructure that treats childcare, education, and youth development as collective responsibilities rather than privatized family burdens. It challenges the invisibility and undervaluation of care work and insists that justice requires societal commitment to all children's thriving.