Early childhood care and education services in New Zealand have experienced major policy reforms since 1984. Life history interviews were carried out over a two-year period to obtain insight into the impact of the major reforms on the lives of eight kindergarten teachers. This article looks at the teachers' own perceptions of the changes and how they often felt "overtaken" or "misplaced" within the reforms. The teachers' stories are positioned within an environment of competing discourses about education, where newly established discourses worked to relocate or misplace the teachers.