Starting with a discussion of the genocide and the figure of the child in Gaza, this essay brings together the collection “Vulnerability, Innocence and Futurity: Essays on Contemporary Politics of Childhood,” arguing that the various essays show how children serve as a battleground for the shifting relationship between liberalism and illiberalism in the contemporary world. I suggest that the shift towards illiberalism is visible by looking at the concept of innocence, and how it changes in relation to children. Specifically, the liberal, Enlightenment belief that we all start off (equally) innocent is challenged by the illiberal notions that are circulating more and more widely, suggesting that innocence is less about equality, and more about essentialist, racially informed notions of inheritance or blood lines, and biology. First, I track how the liberal concept of childhood innocence is challenged by the Left (sometimes in illiberal contexts), suggesting children can and do exert powerful forms of agency, rather than act as innocent victims – Sadjadi’s essay demonstrates how children can stage a political revolution (in Iran), while Glockner’s shows how they strategize with nuance and care to cross the US-Mexico border. Second, I turn to how liberal notions of innocence are being challenged by illiberal ones, which rework and reclaim it: innocence is grounded in fixed notions of “nature,” and manifest through a combination of race and biology. Ideas that challenge it are considered contagious. We see this in relation to children subject to “gender ideology” in France (Robcis), children who are considered “terrorists” in Egypt (Galal), and through “Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder” in indigenous children in Canada (Sabiston). Innocence here is an essentialist condition that enables profound political inequalities and hierarchies; and as such, serves as an impediment to all flourishing.