Allyn Fives is Lecturer in the School of Political Science and Sociology and the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre, National University of Ireland, Galway

• 1 Introduction: philosophy, power, and parents Part I: Paternalism and its limits2 Paternalism 3 Caretaker or liberator?Part II: Conceptual and metholodogical issues4 Moral dilemmas5 Children’s agency6 Parental power7 Normative legitimacy Part III: The moral legitimacy of parental power8 Legitimacy in the political domain and in the family9 Licensing, monitoring, and training parents10 Children and the provision of informed consent11 Sharing lives, shaping values, and voluntary civic education12 ConclusionIndex

‘Fives’ book is a wise, intelligent, consistently interesting, robustly argued and elegant discussion of issues that span the division of normative applied philosophy into ethics and political theory. It is an excellent contribution to the Lockean question of how and why power is rightly exercised by adult guardians over their children. No-one can read it without understanding this question better.’David Archard, Queen’s University, Belfast, Journal of political power