Contributing to recent work in the critical sociology of childhood, this article presents an ethnographic and discursive analysis of the multitude of cultural meanings associated with child-centeredness in US American early childhood education. Specifically, the article focuses on Waldorf education, a private educational alternative focused on “protecting childhood” from the perceived dangers of modern society. Although marketed as an alternative to the standardized and testing-laden environment of public education, the Waldorf philosophy has much in common with dominant US American ways of constructing childhood that reifies a Western, White, middle-class protected childhood as the most legitimate and healthy context of development. However, being “child-centered” does not necessarily mean the liberation of the child from regulatory discourses and practices; in fact, child-centeredness can often function to shape children in specific, adult-sanctioned ways. Instead, I argue, the field could benefit from a move toward discourses and practices of child liberation. (author abstract)