A birth certificate is not a biological property title: Has an insidiously persistent idea finally reached its use-by date?

Particularly in western societies, the notion that children are biological property has been a strongly implicit idea for many generations. It has therefore also been an idea that has implicitly pervaded our child welfare legislation and practice for generations, despite frequent legal rhetoric about the rights of the child. In this paper, the author traces the negative effects on welfare practice that this notion of children as property has had over the last half century. In doing so, the author calls not only on his professional experience, but also on his personal experience as a foster, adoptive and permanent care parent. Some provisions within the new Victorian child protection legislation are examined to gauge their capacity to address the negative effects on practice of this persistent notion, and reason found for some guarded optimism.