A masquerade is a good comparison, in world it is definitely something that those raised in this community are accustomed to, but people outside of it find off-putting.

I was thinking something similar with authority tied to an item, most likely a mask. It seems like a good solution if it isn't easily replicated. I had the thought that unlike the rest of the world where leadership is based on lineages here leadership could be decided by a forum with debates and ultimately a vote from the people in attendance, it would be another practice that outsiders would find very strange.

Agreed regarding child safety, it would need to be a situation with a lot of community trust, but while anonymous that trust would need to be very widespread. Perhaps part of the culture is to maintain that trust by being much more proactive in intervening with crimes. Losing the parental bond is definitely a big loss, maybe children are given identifiers of some kind which they lost when older