# How much importance should we place on the innocence of children? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 24, 2016, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-importance-should-we-place-on-the-innocence-of-children/750024 "2016-03-24T14:32:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-importance-should-we-place-on-the-innocence-of-children/750024/21 "2016-03-25T18:55:49Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m not a believer in “childhood innocence” at all. Not when you consider how vicious and cruel they can be to each other. Yup. And what good does it do to try to hide the truth about life and reality from children? It’s practically child abuse. Particularly the prudes who try to pretend sex doesn’t exist and end up with a pregnant 13-year-old daughter who had no idea how life works. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-importance-should-we-place-on-the-innocence-of-children/750024/22 "2016-03-25T19:03:58Z")
There’s a difference between unfiltered truth and age appropriate information. All kids are different and I think what is considered age appropriate is flexible. What age should kids learn about sex? Is that the same age they should learn about 2 girls and 1 cup? I’m going to say no to that. Kids are not adults and there is no sense in pretending that they have the same capacity for understanding as adults, or even as other children at other ages. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-importance-should-we-place-on-the-innocence-of-children/750024/23 "2016-03-25T19:06:50Z")
It all depends on specific situations there is no blanket answer. My parents divorced when I was 10 and my Mom didn’t make very much money, during an already sad period for me she then constantly told me for years that we had no money and were on the verge of losing our house and being homeless, she was dumping all her financial stress on a child that didn’t know how to handle that information and for years I lived in constant fear that we would lose everything and be homeless. I certainly wish I had been shielded from that reality as it served absolutely no purpose other than to upset me because I didn’t understand the problem and had no control over it. We never lost the house either so it was really unnecessary. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-importance-should-we-place-on-the-innocence-of-children/750024/24 "2016-03-25T19:15:08Z")
Also my Mom would repeatedly tell me how my Dad was an alcoholic and how he had constantly cheated on my Mother when they were married and other sordid things he did. These things were true but I didn’t have the emotional maturity to deal with all this information, it really just hurt me more than anything. ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-importance-should-we-place-on-the-innocence-of-children/750024/25 "2016-03-25T19:48:08Z")
Should a 10-year-old be taught where babies come from? Sure. Should a 10-year-old be viewing hardcore porn? No. Should a 10-year-old be taught nothing about the human reproductive & sex drives? No. There is a continuum, there are infinite shades of grey. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-importance-should-we-place-on-the-innocence-of-children/750024/26 "2016-03-25T19:48:51Z")
At least 50. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-importance-should-we-place-on-the-innocence-of-children/750024/27 "2016-03-25T23:19:59Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > It is interesting that the USA defines the legal drinking age and the age of consent at the highest age in the world. No country has a drinking age higher then 21 nor an age of consent higher than 18, and very few match that. One can only conclude from that that the USA presumes its own citizens to be the most retarded in development of personal responsibility, or that America is actually retarding its own maturing citizens. USA doesn’t define legal drinking age or age of consent, the states do. All states made the drinking age 21 eventually because they were pretty much blackmailed into it by the feds but age of consent still varies. 18 is just the upper limit, and limit for things like legally being in porn or whatnot. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-importance-should-we-place-on-the-innocence-of-children/750024/28 "2016-03-26T01:10:38Z")
> [@pianodave](#): > > I don’t have children, but I imagine in today’s world, with recent events, kids today are much more world-wise than they used to be. In other words, kids have to deal with death, sexuality and other related topics, violence, hatred, bigotry, etc. at a much younger age than we did. Not saying the world was rosy when we were kids, but things have changed significantly. Have they? When I was in elementary school, a lot of people still thought that if you shook hands with a homosexual you might get AIDS and die. When my mother was in elementary school, racially integrated public schools were still controversial. A few years later she got to hear the death count from Vietnam on the news every night. Oh yeah, and the president was assassinated. And then there was the Cold War… I could go on, but even the most basic grasp of history should be enough to make it obvious that death, violence, bigotry, etc. existed before the present day. For much of history children were if anything less sheltered from this sort of thing than they are now. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-importance-should-we-place-on-the-innocence-of-children/750024/29 "2016-03-26T01:17:48Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Have they? > > When I was in elementary school, a lot of people still thought that if you shook hands with a homosexual you might get AIDS and die. When my mother was in elementary school, racially integrated public schools were still controversial. A few years later she got to hear the death count from Vietnam on the news every night. Oh yeah, and the president was assassinated. And then there was the Cold War… > > I could go on, but even the most basic grasp of history should be enough to make it obvious that death, violence, bigotry, etc. existed before the present day. For much of history children were if anything less sheltered from this sort of thing than they are now. no kidding. this was in Macon, Georgia, in 1909: [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Mill_Children_in_Macon_2.jpg) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Mill_Children_in_Macon_2.jpg) little kids having to work amongst dangerous machinery. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-importance-should-we-place-on-the-innocence-of-children/750024.md?page=1)