Innocence

[debka_notion]

Just was thinking as I brushed my teeth- when did innocence become a bad thing for a young person to have, in our society? It used to be a virtue for young ladies at least, and young men as well, I think. And certainly fiction is full of stories of babies and animals who do things because they are too young and innocent to realize that htey can't. (c.f. Pixel, who is The Cat Who Walks Through Walls in the book of that title, and Magnus in The Warlock Revised, who requires a crib with a lid on it because otherwise he floats away, a tactic he sadly looses/learns to control in the other books of the series) It's a strange division.

Comments

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

May depend on the age in question -- there's certainly a strong idea of small children having the moral compass and common sense we've all lost, etc. It may just be that the point at which one is expected to have entered the real world is younger -- for example, Victorian young ladies were considered children, to be kept away from society and with their nurses, until they were twenty-one. Given the choice, most teenagers these days would probably opt for slightly less than that degree of innocence.