Answering the Question

This was spoken by a moderator at work over at a Sarah's Law forum to someone with subversive words that were immediately handed over to the authorities for no particular reason other than to buy up the law's valuable time (it's only human to feel self-righteous). This statement could be the paradigm argument of most ordinary people on the subject of children, and yet, we will see just how flimsy it is:

I ask this question.... should a child not be left alone so that the innocence of childhood can be enjoyed before the realities of adulthood?

1. Should a child not be left alone? I'm not certain. Let's try to lend this concept of leaving children "alone" to intuition. Obviously, by "alone" this person doesn't mean physically leaving the child on their own, but rather, "not being tampered with" is probably a definition closer to what they have in mind. The primary question becomes, "should a child not be tampered with" or at the very least, deviated from their natural starting point of ignorance, egotism, and intolerance for others? Are the traits of the average four year old worth preserving? Should not children, in some way, be educated? Learning by definition, is simply a change, an alteration in behavior in response to the presence of a stimulus. "Leaving the child alone," for instance, would entail there never being a stimulus with the effect of there never necessitating a response. Unless we believe that children should never be educated, we should not believe that they should be left "un-tampered with." This statement doesn't lend itself to intuition very well.

We could also further take this to be a self-defeating ideology if we understand children (just as human as human) to be naturally equipped for learning and changing over time. To manually enforce that children never change, and thus go against their nature, is to be tampering with them--the very thing this ideology suggests we should be avoiding. Self-defeating ideologies do not lend themselves to intuition at all.

2. ...so that the innocence of childhood can be enjoyed? Young children are naturally ignorant of many things, and one of them is the adult concept of innocence. In order to enjoy anything, understanding the thing being enjoyed is a requirement. The rationale for this is that when a person enjoys something they are not familiar with, they are in fact enjoying the "essence" of the thing being enjoyed, and not the thing itself, because the thing itself is unknown to them. A child can not enjoy a concept that adults have invented, because such a thing is purely a metaphysical thought construct within a given culture. What is normally meant by this statement is that a child should enjoy their time alive while they still qualitatively possess the attributes of being a young human being. This makes sense, but should not the same be true for anyone, young or old? It is a mere platitude when in reference to a particular sect of human being.

3. ...before the realities of adulthood? "The realities of adulthood," in the context of this statement, are supposed to carry a negative, harsh tone in conjunction with the "enjoyment" tone of the previous clause to create the effect that children live in a world without "realities" (or at least, the indication that they should not live a world with realities) and that adults live in a world devoid of "enjoyments." Such is just not intuitive. A child's time alive is in fact one that has it's own set of realities, if by realities, this person means to say "troubles" or "hardships", or even "responsibilities." Firstly, if children, by the sake of being children, were never troubled, never had to face any hardships, or carry any responsibilities, we should never to expect them to cry, or to fight, or to revolt against authority, and yet they do these things. Such is wishful thinking for adults who are the authority, but does not mirror reality. Secondly, implied in this statement is that the adult world is one not to be enjoyed, and if such were true, we should expect adults to never laugh or seek out entertainment, for instance. This statement is made simply to justify adult authority over young people, depicting themselves as selfless missionaries and children as noble savages. Such is wishful thinking for the maintenance of the adult power structure, but does not mirror reality.

This is not even to mention that many child "realities" are imposed on them by the very social systems that use this very ideology as their creed for operation. Children can get themselves into very compromising situations when they step out beyond what adults conceive and have established as their reality. For instance, there are many 5 year old Registered Sex Offenders, playing doctor can carry serious penalties for children in some states (Utah). So again we find ourselves asking, should not children be left alone? It seems adults only have definitive answer for this when it suits their purposes of maintaining control, so the seeming contradiction in motivations bleeds this statement dry of any genuine thirst for justice it might have had.

Taken together, this statement does not define what it means by "children." A child, under the law, is anyone between birth and the age of majority (0 and 18 in the US). The statement looses more credibility depending on what type of "child" it is referring to. For instance, if it is suggesting that 17-year-old US minors are should be "left alone to enjoy the innocence of childhood before the realities of adulthood," then it doesn't lend itself to us intuitively in the least, particularly when considering that those 17-year-old US minors who are supposedly "enjoying the innocence of childhood" are going to be facing those "adult realities" in the coming year. This exercise simply illustrates the faulty reasoning of the majority.

In short form, the answer to the question (taking all the reasoning that made this statement into account) is no.