Over the last two decades, early childhood education (ECE) has come to the top of the political agenda in New Zealand and internationally. The interest of governments and policy-makers in ECE has been driven by the thinking that an 'investment' in ECE is a key for a country's future social and economic development (OECD 2007, "Policy Brief: Lifelong Learning and Human Capital." OECD. http://www.forschungsnetzwerk.at/downloadpub/OECDLetter-LLL.pdf). Through an interplay of the existing early childhood discourses and emerging economic discourses, the contexts in which early childhood teachers understand and undertake their work and view themselves as professionals have, thus rapidly changed (Penn 2013, "Childcare Markets: Do They Work." In "Childcare Markets: Can They Deliver an Equitable Service?," edited by Eva Lloyd and Helen Penn, 19-42. Bristol, UK: Policy Press; Brown et al. 2018, "Questioning Democratic Notions of Governance: A Case Study Examining How a Kindergarten Teacher and Her Students Give Voice to and Enact a Neoliberal Framing of Schooling." In "Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood," June. London, England: SAGE PublicationsSage UK; Pupala, Kascak, and Tesar 2016, "Learning How to Do up Buttons: Professionalism, Teacher Identity and Bureaucratic Subjectivities in Early Years Settings." "Policy Futures in Education" 14 (6): 655-665. doi:10.1177/1478210316642675; Cumming, Sumsion, and Wong 2015, "Rethinking Early Childhood Workforce Sustainability in the Context of Australia's Early Childhood Education and Care Reforms." "International Journal of Child Care and Education Policy" 9 (1): 2. doi:10.1007/s40723-015-0005-z). This article problematises constructions of 'expert teachers' and 'vulnerable children', which emerged through an interplay of discourses of social intervention, economic investment and vulnerability in New Zealand ECE. It argues that the identity constructions on offer have a powerful potential to reinforce social-interventionist and neoliberal narratives in ECE, and move a purpose of ECE away from the idea of collective democracy (Dewey 1976, "Creative Democracy: The Task Before Us." In "John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925-1953," edited by J. Boydston, vol. 14, 224-230. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. (Original work published 1939)).