We adults protect ourselves with laws, police, workplace regulations and social norms and there is no conceivable reason why children should be left more vulnerable, other that laziness or callousness in considering what life is like from their point of view.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the need to safeguard children's rights and perspectives just as adults are protected by laws and norms.
Steven Pinker highlights the hypocrisy of adult protection measures that do not extend to children, urging society to recognize and consider the vulnerabilities children face. He advocates for a shift in perspective that accounts for children's needs and experiences, suggesting that failing to do so is a result of either indifference or a lack of effort to empathize with their situation.
In practice
During a discussion on child welfare policies, this quote could be referenced to highlight the importance of considering children's perspectives.
The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.
The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age in the price we pay for the vigor of youth.
If we are not to abandon values such as peace and equality, or our commitments to science and truth, then we must pry these values away from claims about our psychological makeup that are vulnerable to being proven false.
The idea that children are passive repositories to be shaped by their parents has been massively overstated. A child's peer group is a far greater determinant of its development and achievements than parental aspiration.
Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.
Photography is a kind of virtual reality, and it helps if you can create the illusion of being in an interesting world.
Maybe that is the best lesson I learned in my first semester at Yale, because if I had gone to a less-demanding school and continued to sail along on the top, I am sure I would never have attained the subsequent achievements in my life.
Instead of going to Paris to attend lectures, go to the public library, and you won't come out for twenty years, if you really wish to learn.
I train my chefs completely different to anyone else. My young girls and guys, when they come to the kitchen, the first thing they get is a blindfold. They get blindfolded and they get sat down at the chef's table... Unless they can identify what they're tasting, they don't get to cook it.
It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them.
Furnish an example, stop preaching, stop shielding, don't prevent self-reliance and initiative, allow your children to develop along thier own lines.
A good teacher can never be fixed in a routine... each moment requires a sensitive mind that is constantly changing and constantly adapting. A teacher must never impose this student to fit his favourite pattern; a good teacher functions as a pointer, exposing his student's vulnerability and causing him to explore both internally and finally integrating himself with his being. Martial art should not be passed out indiscriminately.
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