Do Children Have The Same Innocence That We Had?

Children are required to grow up a lot faster now than I did. They learn things about three years earlier than I did, and they have direct exposure to the cruelties of the world. I think the tv and movie and video game exposure is responsible for a lot of it. The tv shows now are so much different than when I was a kid. The reality shows rule and the not so happy endings and real life situations. Children aren't stupid they learn from this exposure. And with more single parent homes the children get hit with reality that much quicker. I just think that life in general is so much faster now it is hard to maintain any level of innocence.

i don't think they do-it seems like there's even more pressure on them to grow up fast now. just some of the clothes they're wearing-and i've seen girls as young as 8 with makeup on. my dad would've beat my butt i even thought about makeup that early.

I don't think the world has changed significantly and I don't think it's any more dangerous for children than it was when I was young. What I do think is different is the access to information that children have nowadays via television and the internet and the lack of control that some parents seem to exercise over this access. Why any child (by child I'm meaning under-12's) needs to have a tv or a computer in their bedroom just escapes me. At that age they should be active - not sitting in front of a tv or pc screen for hours. I also think the sexualisation of children at a young age is very damaging. I see little girls walking around dressed like grown women with cropped tops and low-rise jeans. You can buy thong underwear for 6 year olds for goodness sakes! I mean - who buys this stuff?

As a kid I never thought that I will get kidnapped or raped by someone but with my ids I am always worried and tense about these issue. My parents are no more but I would have liked to ask them ifd they ahd worried about me like that in their days. With recent Nithari killings and so many under gae kidnappings and rapes, I wonder can we really trust anyone in this world now. Infact m,y kid has two friends who coma nad play with him. WHile I tend to ensutre that they play outside and do some running around, their mothers are so scared that one is addicted to computers and other to the TV and they hate playing outside. I am currently baby sitting all three and I have to scold them away from TV and now senmd them to play in the open ground in front of my house. I wonder what we used to do when there was no TV and no computers. Life was so much enjoyable then what it is now.

Nowadays kid have all kind of amusement, video games, online games, and internet. Their horizon is much broader than that ours when we were kids. Kids in the 70s, 80s were just naughty. But kids now may hurt others when they are angry.

My five year old has already picked a husband, informed her grandfather that she need part of his land for her husband to build her a house, asked me why "all those people HAD to die" at VT last week, told me that when she grew up her bras would be prettier than mine and begged me to please take her to the doctor to get the baby boy out of her tummy. Now when some of this conversation came about it was kind of cute, HOWEVER, I do not remember even being aware that there was a world outside of my front door, much less understood how any of it worked until I was much older (and even I think I found out things too soon). Our children are totally desensitized and I think some of it is our fault. I find myself trying to explain things to my DD when a simple "that's for big people to know" would suit her just fine.

i think the children do get to experience some innocence, but no where as much as they should, i personally think mostly that parents are to blame why, the way some people carry on.

I don't think so, and I blame the politicalizing of education. The liberals want to get kids involved with their agenda, global warming, aids, anti-war & the right fights back with so much of the violence of the day. Then you have little kids from bad neighborhoods seeing gang activies & bring that to school. These days so many mothers are from the "me" generation and more concerned with what they want rather than what the kids need. Spoken as a non-parent you understand....

Kids today aren't able to "thump" their imagination muscle. With all gadgets and technologies where do they have the space to be creative. They need to go outside and play or on rainy days read a book or write a book/comic book or build a fort. They can no longer go down the street w/o having parents put in a DVD in the car's dvd player...what happened to looking outside and asking questions "Who makes the lights turn green to yellow to red?". Kids don't have the bandwidth to be kids!! ...and our future is in their hands!