# Are children actually more important and innocent than adults? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 24, 2017, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-children-actually-more-important-and-innocent-than-adults/787326 "2017-05-24T04:03:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2017, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-children-actually-more-important-and-innocent-than-adults/787326/21 "2017-05-25T09:56:23Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > You’re totally overlooking the issue of a person’s potential–both economic and otherwise. A middle-aged or older person may be able to work, or invent things, or otherwise contribute to society, but much of what they represent is in the past. > > Whereas a child has many decades of potential contributions to society. This is one of the reasons why most people try to protect children–there is no test to predict who will be the next important scientist, inventor, author, or artist. Therefore, it is simply logical to err on the side of caution, and try to protect all children. So we’re all just cogs in the great economic machine? If that’s the case, better to be sad at the demise of an adult who’s contributing _now_ rather than a cog-in-training who might or might not be a contributor in future years. You should be sadder if the bomber had targeted a conference of cancer researchers. I hold all lives are equally precious and would be just as upset either way. I think it’s simply instinct; it’s hard-wired into us and no further analysis is necessary. And the bomber relied on that instinct when he chose his target. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2017, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-children-actually-more-important-and-innocent-than-adults/787326/22 "2017-05-25T17:39:08Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > You’re totally overlooking the issue of a person’s potential–both economic and otherwise. A middle-aged or older person may be able to work, or invent things, or otherwise contribute to society, but much of what they represent is in the past. > > Whereas a child has many decades of potential contributions to society. This is one of the reasons why most people try to protect children–there is no test to predict who will be the next important scientist, inventor, author, or artist. Therefore, it is simply logical to err on the side of caution, and try to protect all children. I don’t think this is a good argument. Speaking purely form a hard nosed, devil’s advocate, dollars and cents, pragmatic position, with no heart: a 22 year old just out of college is more valuable in terms of productivity than a two year old. The 22 year old give you a lifetime worth of productivity without expending the resources for 20 years non-productive years of care, feeding and training. Making babies is easy, raising them to adulthood is hard. As far as innocence goes, with an adult there is the possibility that they have done something that makes them a justifiable target, but not so with a child. If the US military claims that only militants were killed in their air strike, it might be possible if 10 adults were killed. Not so much if 5 adults and 5 children. But in the end it boils down to hard wired biology. Our instinct to protect defenseless babies it what allows them to survive to reproductive age. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2017, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-children-actually-more-important-and-innocent-than-adults/787326/23 "2017-05-25T19:14:03Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Many adults are parents. Most parents experience extreme attachment to their children, at an emotional and biochemical level. This causes them to generally see children as super-important, particularly regarding them being hurt. Even if you’re jaded and have no sympathy for the screaming kid in the restaurant, you still wouldn’t want to see them gutted because even when you’re sick and tired of your own kid, you would be very strongly effected were they gutted. > > I feel this emotional reaction to the suffering of children accounts for 100% of society’s preoccupation with their safety. To the degree that any intellectual analysis performed seems cold and clinical. All of this. When people–many of whom are parents–hear about tragedies taking the lives of children, they react strongly because they imagine it to happening to their own kids. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2017, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-children-actually-more-important-and-innocent-than-adults/787326/24 "2017-05-25T19:29:02Z")
> [@](#): > > Now I see why tigers eat their young > > – Hobbs I think the premise of the OP is wrong … we don’t really care more about the Manchester shooting or the Oklahoma City Bombing any more because lil’ children were killed … that would mean we care less about the Orlando Shooting or the 9/11 attacks because very few children were killed … I don’t believe that’s the case … we care very deeply about all these terrorist attacks and weep for _all_ who are killed … I agree about the “instinctual” part … it’s preyed upon to remind everyone to repress these feelings towards their children … one of those odd things about human society … ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2017, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-children-actually-more-important-and-innocent-than-adults/787326/25 "2017-05-25T21:32:27Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > I think the premise of the OP is wrong … we don’t really care more about the Manchester shooting or the Oklahoma City Bombing any more because lil’ children were killed … that would mean we care less about the Orlando Shooting or the 9/11 attacks because very few children were killed … I don’t believe that’s the case … we care very deeply about all these terrorist attacks and weep for _all_ who are killed … > > I agree about the “instinctual” part … it’s preyed upon to remind everyone to repress these feelings towards their children … one of those odd things about human society … While we do count all such attacks as tragedies, unless you have been ignoring all media for your entire life you have to have seen that we seem to care more when the victims are children. Twice as many people were killed in Orlando than at Sandy Hook, but the public reaction was much stronger to the later than the former. ---
**Author:** ![Maurie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df788c/32.png) [@Maurie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maurie)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2017, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-children-actually-more-important-and-innocent-than-adults/787326/26 "2017-05-26T13:42:38Z")
When I think of the way we use “innocent” to describe children, it’s less in the sense of “never done anything wrong” and more “trusting and unguarded”. That’s the part that makes me sad when I think of kids being hurt. A little girl going wide-eyed and full of awe and excitement to see her favourite singer is a sweet, wholesome, and lovely thing that seems in painfully stark contrast to how it ended up. I mean, it’s incomprehensible to any sane person of any age, of course. But somehow for a kid who might know in an abstract sense that there are bad things that happen in the world but still largely thinks calling someone “stupid” is the height of cruelty, it seems especially unfathomable. It’s like the moment when the wide-eyed Cindy Lou Who confronts the Grinch: “Why, Santy Claus? Why? Why are you taking our Christmas tree?” It’s not the anger or indignance or exasperation of someone older and more worldy who totally knows what a huge pile of jerks people can be. It’s the pure astonishment of someone who genuinely believes that the world is a mostly good place where people try to do the right thing. That’s what I personally find heart-breaking. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2017, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-children-actually-more-important-and-innocent-than-adults/787326/27 "2017-05-26T14:49:24Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > While we do count all such attacks as tragedies, unless you have been ignoring all media for your entire life you have to have seen that we seem to care more when the victims are children. Twice as many people were killed in Orlando than at Sandy Hook, but the public reaction was much stronger to the later than the former. I don’t ignore media, but I don’t let media define how I feel … I don’t even believe the media half the time … and in case we haven’t noticed the recent Presidential election, we might not realize just how many people think the victims in Orlando deserved to die … here locally Orlando is still a hot topic, Sandy Hook is never mentioned … but we’ve cultivated a strong and vibrant gay/lesbian component to our community … So, is this the “public reaction” the media tells you to believe? … I have my doubts … according to the media, teenage black girls _never_ get kidnapped and raped … ---
**Author:** ![Not\_Carlson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bc79bd/32.png) [@Not\_Carlson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Not_Carlson)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-children-actually-more-important-and-innocent-than-adults/787326/28 "2017-05-27T03:33:39Z")
I’m pretty sure this topic’s been covered before. Regardless, I’m certain ZPGzealot will be along shortly to weigh in on the matter. (And then god help the thread to stay out of the Pit.) > [@protoboard](#): > > However - _why_ do most people care more if something bad happens to a child, versus to an older person? Are children perceived as being more noble and virtuous, and incapable of evil? Is there any evidence that children are in reality more innocent and good than adults, or is it just an instinctual truism we believe because it’s in our genes to protect the young? Aside from innocence, as many have suggested, children represent potential. They take what we have prepared for them and, hopefully, do something better with it. They are the seeds of our future society. When a middle-aged or elderly person dies, sad as it may be, we can find comfort by reflecting on the experiences they have had, the accomplishments that have achieved, and the contributions they have made to society. When a young child dies, the sorrow we feel is increased by the thought that they and we have been robbed of those potential experiences and accomplishments. > [@zoogirl](#): > > I think “instinctive” nails it. We are taught to take care of kids all the way back to our own childhoods. “Look after your little sister”, “Be careful with the baby”, “Help your brother”. It all comes down to caring for, and about, those younger than us. . . . > . . . It follows that we all view harming a child as something against both nature and convention. Quite so. An attack on children goes against the instinct to nurture the young and defenseless. It shocks and troubles us to see that someone could betray what we believe to be human nature and harm a defenseless child. So, to the OP, I’d suggest there are three elements at work: [ol] [li]The perception of children as innocent (with various meanings thereto).[/li][li]The idea that children represent potential.[/li][li]The instinct to protect the young.[/li][/ol] ---
**Author:** ![Marcus\_Flavius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@Marcus\_Flavius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marcus_Flavius)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-children-actually-more-important-and-innocent-than-adults/787326/29 "2017-05-29T14:47:53Z")
In our time and in our culture, ‘children’ are regarded as both infinitely precious and immeasurably fragile. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-children-actually-more-important-and-innocent-than-adults/787326.md?page=1)