This article discusses the reconfiguration of state action for children in Chile, a characteristic move of democratic neoliberalism. The economic reforms put in place by the dictatorship since 1973 created a residual state that merged the modernization of management with tutelary approaches to social intervention. This model, consolidated with the advent of democracy, proposes hybrid strategies of social protection. As such, the framework that grew out of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) is a fragmented, technocratic, tutelary mixture of strategies that reflects the residual model of child protection. However, democratic governments defend this model, arguing that the normative framework imposed during the dictatorship is inevitable, and that changing the politico-economic landscape on which child protection policies are based would be impossible. This study attempts to show that this condition of inevitability stems from social myths, proposing instead a diachronic reading of state action. The current structure of these policies is a continuation of a long process, whose origin precedes the dictatorship, and which has been reinforced under democracy. We focus on the challenges that face any understanding of the democratic liberal phenomenon in the context of contemporary Chilean policy.