This paper is concerned to present professionalism in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) as a sociocultural construction. In particular the article is concerned with how professional identities are inflected by autobiography and the spaces and opportunities that exist for the construction of alternative professional identities. Drawing on a recent empirical study with nursery workers in London a critical appraisal of hegemonic discourses is presented and a consideration of "professionalism from within" is offered. A specific focus is placed upon the notion of the "critically reflective emotional professional" and how that might be taken up or resisted at different levels of the ECEC policy-practitioner landscape. (Contains 1 table and 3 notes.)