The provision of early childhood education and care for children and families has received unprecedented community attention in recent times. In the resulting policy flows, competing and contradictory discourses of professional identity have emerged. In part, these are also shaped by dominant political and economic discourses, and interact with existing and emerging discourses of professionalism within the early childhood sector to both constrain and expand possible professional identities. This article explores some dimensions of these policy trajectories, in particular the increasingly dominant presence of corporatised childcare, and recent strategies to regulate early childhood teachers and courses. The potential impact of these on conceptualisations of professional identity in the Australian context is discussed, and frameworks of caring, reconceptualised leadership and the concept of ‘robust hope’ are signposted as possible conceptual resources for building robust early childhood professional identities.