If a Five-Year-Old Wrote the Policy
- Tewabech Genet Stewart
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
“Unless you change and become like little children…” Matthew 18:3
The child welfare system tells the public a comforting story.
It says it exists to protect children.
To keep them safe.
To act in their “best interest.”
But if a five-year-old were watching what actually happens, they would be deeply confused.
Because this system does not look like protection through a child’s eyes.
Children See What Adults Explain Away
A five-year-old doesn’t understand systems, statutes, or funding streams.
They understand fairness, love, and belonging.
So when the system shows up, a child wouldn’t ask policy questions.
They would ask human ones.
“If my mom doesn’t have a house, why can’t you just give her a house?”
“If we’re hungry, why can’t you give us food?”
“Why are you taking me instead of helping her?”
“Why am I being punished when I didn’t do anything wrong?”
These are not naïve questions.
They are honest ones.
And the fact that our system cannot answer them without hiding behind complexity should disturb us.
What the System Calls Protection, Children Experience as Loss
From a child’s perspective, child welfare doesn’t feel like safety.
It feels like:
being removed from the person who loves you most
being taken from the only home you’ve known
being taken from everyone and everything familiar
being forced to live with strangers
A five-year-old does not experience this as rescue.
They experience it as separation.
And separation is not neutral.
It is trauma.
If Children Were in the Boardroom
Imagine for a moment that instead of lawyers, administrators, and consultants, a group of five-year-olds were sitting in the boardroom drafting child welfare policy.
What would their policies say?
They might sound like this:
If a family doesn’t have housing, give them housing.
If a family doesn’t have food, give them food.
If a parent is struggling, help them. Don’t threaten them.
Don’t take children away.
Keep families together.
Ask children what they want and listen to them.
If you can’t help a family, leave them alone.
There would be no tolerance for punishing parents for being poor.
No justification for spending more money on foster care than on families.
No belief that strangers deserve more support than parents.
Children would design a system that protects their birthright: the right to belong to their family, their people, their story.
Fear Built This System. Not Love
The modern child welfare system is built on fear.
Fear of parents.
Fear of poverty.
Fear of liability.
Fear of uncertainty.
Fear leads to surveillance.
Fear leads to control.
Fear leads to removal.
But fear is not how children move through the world.
And it is not how Jesus told us to live.
“Unless You Become Like Children…”
Jesus did not say this metaphorically.
In Matthew 18:3, He said: “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
He placed a child at the center.
He elevated children as the example, not the exception.
Children are clear where adults are conflicted.
Children are honest where adults rationalize.
Children choose love where adults choose control.
If we truly took Jesus at His word, our child welfare system would look radically different.
It would prioritize:
mercy over punishment
support over separation
restoration over control
love over fear
A system built by people trying to be more childlike would not look like what we have now.
The Question We Must Face
The problem is not that we don’t know how to protect children.
The problem is that we have accepted a system that children themselves would reject.
So here is the real question:
If a five-year-old drafted child welfare policies;
If we were brave enough to become more like children;
If we incorporated Jesus’ teachings into our daily lives;
What would we have to change?
And what would finally become possible for children and families if we did?
If a five-year-old wouldn’t choose it, we shouldn’t be building it.
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