Collective Care as a Rights Infrastructure

Sor Juana thrived intellectually through access to libraries, mentorship, and institutional resources—she was never solely dependent on one family but embedded in networks of knowledge and care. This reveals that children's rights cannot be realized through individual family effort alone; they require collective infrastructure and shared responsibility. Collective care as a rights framework means communities, governments, and institutions must ensure all children have access to nutrition, healthcare, safe spaces, education, and mentorship regardless of family wealth or status. When societies treat child-rearing as exclusively private responsibility, children born into poverty or unstable families suffer unnecessary deprivation. Sor Juana's life demonstrates how access to libraries, learned communities, and institutional support can unlock a child's potential. Collective care infrastructure recognizes children as members of communities deserving investment from the whole society. This includes publicly funded schools, healthcare, safe recreational spaces, and mentorship networks. Through this Sophianic lens, ensuring children's rights means building robust communal systems that guarantee every child's access to what they need to flourish—not leaving their fate to circumstance of birth.