This article analizes the discourse that justified the launching of a chilcare programe by the Estado Novo regime, in 1940, with the foundatiton of the Departamento Nacional da Criança. I argue that this discourse belonged to a conservative view of the dualist metaphor concerning adults and children behavior as a struggle between Evel and Goodness, started in the XVIII century. Here, the discourse is depicted into its fundamental elements and compared to two differentes interpretations on the same issue: the feminist moviment project of social care and a critical study by the sociologist Guerreiro Ramos. I argue that simbolic elements of a collective mentality can be read in different ways.
Childcare; Ideology; Estado Novo