Why do western societies (esp. USA) worship children?

Question

http://www.nationalreview.com/king/king200403050936.asp
There is a great link about this phenomena. If a person (adult) is possibly injured or in crisis, we (the collective hoard) are conditioned to see it as unfortunate. If a kid happens to be among the injured, it's a tragedy. Aren't all lives equally precious? Be they 2 Earth years or 97?

The "dude": how do you figure that?

Trollbuster...Uh, in my opinion...no. Your children can be cute as they want to be 25 miles away from me.

Answer 1

Great question. I guess the reasoning behind it is that children are deemed "innocent" and therefore should be immune to suffering. But you are absolutely right, either you hold all life sacred or none at all.

Answer 2

I don't believe this is necessarily true, although I have heard war stories about how the Koreans and Vietnamese used their own children to bait our soldiers into lethal traps. They knew that the "americans" would willingly step into a trap if it meant that a child's life might be spared. But I think that is only in extreme circumstances, like war.

Most people I've seen in the US don't conceptualize the innocence of children and rather see them as pets or a bother. I don't think children are worshipped here, at least, I don't agree with the term "worship".

Answer 3

The older a person is when they go the less tragic it seems because the greater opportunity they've had to live a full life - when it's children, it seems more tragic because they didn't even get the chance to experience all those things that the older people did. It's a great opportunity lost.

Answer 4

I think it has a lot to do with the lost opportunity of experiencing life. Of course any time someone (or a group) is killed it's tragic, especially to the families who have lost members. But I think most people who are parents (and some who are NOT parents) would feel an especially painful bond to another person who has lost a child. Another issue is that people do not want to outlive their children.

Answer 5

I'm not sure I base all my sociology studies on satirical commentary from conservative magazines, but... The lives of children really are more valuable than the lives of adults.

EDIT: I'm not sure what does it, actually. I think as a species we're hard-wired to care for and protect the lives of our young over our own. You see this in other animals too -- a mother bird will easily risk her life for the lives of her young. Adult bats look out for young, even if they aren't directly related.

Now, I'm not one for screaming kids in restaurants either. Seeing a bratty little kid hounding his mom for something he wants in Target makes me cringe at the idea of having kids.

But let's say you were driving a truck. The truck's breaks fail and you're going down hill. You can either turn into a school yard full of children, or an office building full of adults. I would choose the office building.

Answer 6

I do love Florence! Thank you!

I think a lot of it is because children are too small and unformed to do anything really mean, and most of us are evolutionarily programmed to like little and helpless things. Which doesn't mean that we shouldn't treat others as valuable, too.

Personally, I like children, as long as I can give them back. I'm a great babysitter and auntie! :-)

Answer 7

You need to read from a more balanced magazine. The National Review is a neo-conservative magazine with a hard-line Republican slant. It is to conservatives what The Nation (another magazine) is to Democrats. You really can't read what they say as news, but rather as opinion. Stick with CNN, PBS or things off of the AP wire for balanced news (even though the Democrats AND Republicans think those news agencies are biased).

Answer 8

Children have not had much of life's experiences at their tender age. Someone at an older age has had the opportunity to live life.

Answer 9

I wouldn't say worship.

It's a bit more tragic when something happens to a child because they are innocent and it's an adults job to love and take care of our children. So, when we see a child in pain we react more motherly/fatherly.

Answer 10

Potential. Children have more potential whereas adults have used most of theirs up.