What's the big deal about children?

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Last edited by Joe90 on 13 Oct 2014, 6:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I once read on WP that the majority of kids have no innocence or something. I don't believe that, but it's what I once read. I couldn't protest because I am a bad protester and people seem to know how to get the last word, leaving me sitting there confused like 'yer but...'

But anyway yes it sometimes feels like everything's 'for' children. Take Christmas for instance. I see it as tradition, a time of the year to give and love, and spend time with family and be festive. But everyone you speak to are just like 'Christmas is for children', even though people like to go out for a Christmas dinner and wear those trendy Christmas jumpers, etc. I don't think Christmas is just about kids. Yes Christmas is fun for children and always seems more magical as a child and all of that, but who's to say adults can't enjoy Christmas too? Christmas is so in your face when it comes round, that its hard not to celebrate it (unless your religion doesn't do Christmas, but I'm not talking about that)

Last edited by Joe90 on 13 Oct 2014, 6:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I guess it's about how they are not able to fend for themselves. But I generally agree with what you say. I find it annoying when there is something terrible in the news, like plane crash or terror, and the reporter will say "Forty people died, three of them children", as if that makes it worse. The adults who died in the accident/terror etc were as helpless as the children in stopping what happened and their deaths are no less tragic than those of the children.
This likely isn't something a lot of people wish to hear, because it is a breech of social convention, but it's my honest opinion, so here goes: In fact it can be far more tragic in my honest opinion. Take for instance the plane that was shot down over Ukraine. There were more than 100 AIDS-researchers on board that plane, and the death of them is far more significant for the world at large than the death of 100 children. Adults can have jobs that put them in a position where they can make a real difference in the world here and now. Children do not. No offense intended, I'm not talking about the grief of the families here.


Maybe people will say that the children haven't lived yet. Sure, there are milestones children haven't reached, but there is also a lot of pain and problems they were spared.



I agree, Zajie. I too am more touched by old people.

While I am a teenager I dispize most kids my age for their insensibleness.

Also I fail to see why this thread is in the general discussion area.

I personally find children very confusing. I look at them and see an adult in a little body. I don't know what to say to them so I talk to them like I would an adult. I had a good friend when I was 10yrs old who was in his 70's. He lived in an old house with no electricity or indoor plumbing. The roof leaked and there were box's and dust everywhere. I told my parents and then the community helped him move to a safer home. He always thanked me for that. The kid's my age were always to busy playing with Barbie dolls and swimming in the swimming pool.

Yes, you're right... if you are looking at it from a completely utilitarian point of view. But from an emotional point of view, the little kids being killed is very hard for most people to deal with, especially people who have, or had, little children themselves and are imagining how awful the parents must feel. I know that before I had kids, I would read tragic news that involved kids (even really awful stuff, like murders) and even though I understood intellectually that it was "awful", the kids were still abstractions. But *after* had had kids of my own, that changed. It became very hard for me to read awful news about kids and not be emotionally affected by it. It was no longer an abstraction. I could imagine how the families would feel, and it WOULD feel different from losing an older family-member who's had a "chance" at life and to experience a full range of human possibilities. Maybe it shouldn't, logically, but it does.

I remember, before I had kids of my own, hearing my uncle talk about the movie Alien... um... I can't remember which one, but the one where she's on the penal colony, and near the beginning of the film she finds out that both Reese and Newt's pods were compromised and then they have an unnecessarily "bloody" autopsy scene with the kid (so she can check to make sure they weren't parasitized) ... anyway, I remember my Uncle being really viciously adamant about how he "couldn't watch that movie" just because of that one story element... the fact that the girl DIED. And I remember being shocked by that, like, huh? You're going to boycott an otherwise fun, entertaining sci-fi movie just because a kid died in it? I thought he was being really stupid and naive or something. Or oversensitive. Well, the fact was, at the time the movie came out, he had a daughter, his only child, who was about the same age as the kid who died in the movie. He just couldn't deal with it because it was "too close to home", too close to perhaps his own nightmare imaginings of how he would feel if he lost his own daughter due to accident or foul play. I didn't understand it at all until I had kids of my own. I mean, I will still watch or read stuff, but it affects me a lot more, and I can relate better to why my Uncle reacted the way he did.

I am not sure why people say children are innocent. I was a child once and there were lot of mean kids, I have had rocks thrown at me because they thought I was stupid, I had pine cones thrown over the fence at me because they didn't like how I talked, I was called ret*d, made fun of for how I talked, got taken advantage of, how is this all innocent? I don't think I had any true friends either. Back then I just didn't know any different. I didn't know what real or fake friends were.

I guess people say kids are innocent because they don't have much knowledge of the world, they are easy to manipulate and take advantage of and they are more trusting, they are very vulnerable. My husband told me anyone is capable of being mean. I just don't buy how kids can't hurt or harm others or how honest they are and genuine or unless I am hallucinating about my childhood.

Totally agree with you. When my oldest kid was in Kindergarten, I spent a lot of time at the school and saw a lot of behavior... and it seemed pretty obvious (at least to me) that, already at that young age, you could sort of tell which kids were going to grow up to be total a-holes, or which kids might be psychopaths, which kids were generally sweet, which kids were going to be victimized... it was sort of astonishing to me, how early that happens. And most of all, I remember there was one little girl in my son's class who was so clearly a Really Good Person, that it was sort of shocking. She didn't seem to have the ego or manipulative drives that are typical for most kids that age. It's odd because she'd be the Poster Child for the "innocent" child you speak of (simply because she was "sweet" and honest and kind), and yet of all the kids, she seemed the most mature, almost wise beyond her years, like an Old Soul.

I guess saying kids are "innocent" (in the context of the reality that kids can be vicious jerks) only makes sense if you are considering that, when they are really young, they probably can't help it too much if they are acting like a-holes... really really little kids are just modeling behavior they've absorbed from other people. I think it takes a pretty long time for kids to develop the maturity to realize that they have a choice, and even more maturity to make a GOOD choice. Not that this excuses their behavior, but it helps to explain it. And by the time they *should* have the maturity to not be jerks, the kids who are going to be a-holes are already convinced that they are correct in their behavior, or at least have a never-ending arsenal of rationalizations protecting them from even considering that they are doing something wrong. Or they just don't give a crap. Or they have other people egging them on, so their own fear drives them to do what they know they shouldn't.

I *did* feel a startling realization of the innocence of very very young children though, when I had my own babies. I realized that when you are talking about teeny, tiny babies, all they really want is to be cared for and loved. That innocence doesn't last long... they pretty quickly absorb the ability to manipulate and realize they not only want love, but also want to have a good time, and to look out for #1... but when they are first born, they do just want love (and food, which I think they feel as a form of love... because to them, love is "comfort"). And I found that to be very poignant... heartbreaking, really... because I could imagine all the babies who were unfortunate enough to be born to parents who were unable or unwilling to give them that very basic thing (comfort) and imagining the effect that would have on the baby. It made me feel terribly sad.

I was bullied so much and used and left a lone and humilated by kids when I was younger thats why I support children because what about the kids the nice kids who are being bullied I feel bad for them kids don't say if they're bullied or something even though it would hurt them more than an older person and the ill feelings from it would stay for so long for them, so I feel bad if they didn't get what they're getting from holidays , etc, etc and thr attention its the least they can get. I hate how cruelty exists everywhere in this world even between kids who are new to this world