Changing views of children raise fresh ethical questions not only about their agency and rights but also about their duties and responsibilities. Scholars today challenge rosy constructions of modern childhood as an idyllic, carefree time and promote instead fresh images of children as active agents in families and society. Yet they offer little guidance on what children actually owe home and community. Meanwhile, children in the middle and upper classes remain sheltered from work, while those in poverty suffer from efforts to support families. Reports about the number of children involved in child trafficking, prostitution, and soldiering are especially disturbing. In all cases, children worldwide have “fewer socially valued ways to contribute” to society than in previous eras. Now more than ever before, difficult questions arise about children's roles, what they owe adults, what they cost, what constitutes harmful and acceptable labor, and so forth.

These dilemmas deserve serious reflection not only because they dramatically affect children's welfare but also because work and play constitute essential dimensions of life for both children and adults. Some might even say they constitute responsibilities, although societies differ over how they distribute them. Religion has always played a powerful role in shaping these norms. In fact, religious claims about children's worth, human flourishing, just distribution of labor, and shared responsibility have sometimes provided alternative visions capable of moderating destructive social and economic tendencies to commodify, use, or abuse children. Yet research on religion and children's duties is limited in both social science and theology. Scholars in religion seldom acknowledge children as contributors to material family welfare. When the vocation of children is discussed at all, it often refers to something intangible, like a child's discernment of God's gifts, and seldom to a child's actual duties in family and society.