The parent–child relationship involves forms of authority that can both nurture and harm children. While recent theories argue that the right to parent should depend on more than biological ties, this paper contends that such approaches misidentify the central normative task. Rather than focusing on who should parent, we should directly specify and enforce children’s rights.

The paper examines two models—the Dual-Comparative (DC) and Best Available Parent (BAP) views—and argues that all depend on prior assumptions about children’s rights. Thresholds in DI and feasibility conditions in BAP all presuppose substantive accounts of what children are owed.

Once children’s rights are specified and effectively enforced through ongoing interventions, the importance of initial parental allocation diminishes. Even in non-ideal conditions, enforcement mechanisms typically matter more than ex ante selection.

A children’s-rights-based framework thus provides a more direct and effective approach to children’s justice than allocation-based theories.