This article aims to problematize the normalization of children in a Nordic welfare society. The production of ‘good childhoods’ is seen as a guarantee for socially sustainable societies. Children are subject to different governing strategies; the ‘child’ and ‘youth’ are disputed symbols, used to protect already established ‘futures’, that is, the present order, and promote alternative futures. Parliamentary debates and government reports about children in the Freetown of Christiania, Denmark, are analysed. The results highlight the need to distinguish between soft and coercive disciplinary power and the presence of sovereign power even in liberal societies that value freedom of the individual.
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