Children

"Not Every Child Will be an Adult" 

   Whenever Altair the Infamous has to provide his reader an example of Earthling ii well adapted to The Planet Cursed by the Vortex, he mentions Fergus. The former Red Salmon, now Warrior Caste of Lutianen. 
   Red Salmons being the most prestigious division of anti-terrorist cops on an planet Earth where there is only one nation and therefore what usually in the past had been military and police are melt in one single function. Fergus was trained as an elite soldier one Earth, furtive and fast despite his imposing 2,20 m and muscular structure. The heir of Viking blood made the transition from magnetic weapons to swords before Altair met him, and the brown thin man from Cuiabá presumed that transition to have been an easy one. 
   From the point of view of average Earthlings any weapon is an preposterous abominations, and those who deal with them are almost as alien as some monster from sci-fiction computer games. Altair has this typical perspective, Fergus on the contrary was one of those alien monsters who believe bandits to be morally different to law enforcers despite the indisputable fact that both carry guns and are able to use them. 
    Perhaps was harder for Altair, with his background of Chemical Engineer and scientific consultant for fiction writers and video game designers, adapt to a society where all men carry weapons and are supposed to use them without remorse or hesitation. About all adult men on Sharitarn have killed other human beings in circumstances where that act was not only legal but also demanded by moral. Altair came from the Vortex with his head full of fantasies about indefinable "changes" the act of kill other human being supposedly should provoke, no matter the reason for the killing. Fergus, by professional duty, had killed more terrorists than he could remember. Most of them men, but some of them women.
    Since the value of human life of one women is infinitely higher than the value of the life of 1.000 men, according to implicitly accepted morality under Global Govern of Earth, Fergus had never killed a woman just to preserve his own life or the lives of his fellow soldiers on the field. However, a woman can trigger a bomb as well as any men, and there is about as many men as there is women among the Genocide Terrorists hunted by the Salmons. Ergo, some now and them, a Salmon must shut a woman's hear or silently brake her neck, in order to prevent the deaths of millions of other women. 
      Admitted: all this experience in battle probably do helped Fergus adaptation to the harsh unforgiven human civilization of Sharitarn. Nevertheless, Altair exaggerates a bit the comfort and tranquility of his friend when he imagines Fergus process of acculturation. 
      One bit of cultural strangeness that was very hard for Fergus to swallow is in the title above. 
      "Not every children will be an adult" is a popular saying, usually used as a metaphor between Sharitarnes since they consider its meaning too self evident to be useful. 
       The translation here is as literal as possible, but because of that it looses the very aspect that makes the sentence so disturbing to the red haired Earthling. In its many versions, the most common one being in Merchant Language, the saying carries with it a affirmation of some sort. Is not just that some children will die before became adults, but mainly that is good and right that many children die without reach adult age. "Not every children is supposed to survive childhood" could be a more accurate translation. 
        Sharitarnes do protect their children, they avoid to place them in unnecessary danger and teach them ways to avoid this too, as soon as they can. Even slave children are protected, in Lutianen they receive about the same protection other children receive. Barbarian wild people do not feed their children if the adult men don't have enough food to eat, because they understand that if the adults die for not being able to hunt and defend themselves then the children will not survive, while the children can die and as long as the adults survive other children will be born. However, civilized people seldom starve to death on Sharitarn, and civilized children are sometimes as spoiled as if they where growing on planet Earth. 
     Nevertheless: not even the High Caste families, and not even the richest Noble Caste lineage, expect to raise all their children up to adulthood. The dead of a child is sad, but children must be allowed risks and is natural part of life that some will die from those risks. 
     Parents have the right to kill their children any time they which to on Lutianen, and on most human State Cities, expect for some exceptions (such as Peasant Caste) but no one sees that right put in practice often. Is more moral principle than habit. However, children are disciplined by physical punishment at their parents discretion and no authority dreams to question their education until they reach the point when they will no longer be children. People talk, more experienced parents do advise the younger ones against omissions and excesses in discipline freely, without wait for permission, but no authority comes between a free person and his or her children. 
     Usually the father has the definitive authority, but depending on the case and on the caste that sometimes fall on the mother. Whatever the case may be, Sharitarnes as a general rule avoid share obligations as much as Medieval Peasants on Earth wanted to avoid leprosy. One person will be responsible for the child, not two, and everyone else will help but only this one individual will make the decisions that cannot be questioned. And that may, in the ultimate limit, include cut the child's throat with a knife. 
     One core stone of morality as it is seemed by the people of Earth around the year 2080 (more or less the year when Fergus last saw his home World) is that children must be protected at any cost. They are said to have a thing called "innocence" that must be guarded against biological facts like human mortality, sexuality, the relation between living animals and the meal they eat, and also must be protected against any physical danger. Any corporal punishment, even a single punitive slap, counts as traumatic violence in the eyes of Earthlings. 
   Sharitarnes do spank their children, not often, and certainly not with the intensity they use to punish adults, but they do. 
   They also allow those same children to play in high bridges that have no side protection against fall, let them punch each other without pay attention, and don't care if slaves have sexual intercourse in the presence of them. The notion of child innocence is absent of Sharitarn morality, as is the notion of adults guilt. 
   Curiously enough the notion of adults guilt comes from metaphysical theories of religious sort long abandoned by Earthling culture, that seems all religions as one same pointless superstition "less useful than garbage because garbage can always be recycled". Children innocence has some relation to this "superstitious nonsense", historic if nothing else, and Fergus as a well educated and highly intelligent military official do realizes that. Intellectually he could even contemplate the reason beneath Sharitarnes ways if that had been pointed to him by some Scholar Caste. 
   Reasonable or not, his feelings of revolt and discomfort each time he sees a child being grounded or slapped for disobedience make Fergus a borderline sociopath. Barely within the minimal limits of Lutianen civility. 
    Only his Warrior Caste discipline serves as a wall between this echoes of Earthling bigotries and the social obligations of a Warrior Caste citizen acting as spy for his king.

"Children are Children"

There is this saying on Sharitarn "Children are children", that causes some misunderstanding between Sharitarnes and the average Earthling of later XX century and the century after that. Is a civilized expression, used by true Noble Castes as often as it is used by Peasant Castes, and its meaning does not varies drastically from Klausdhar to Luderfall, from Lauvriim to Makdiba, or from Lutianen to Mimbao. However, the distance between what Sharitarnes mean when they use the expression and what Earthlings presume they are saying is considerable.
"Children ought to be protected": Sharitarnes and Earthlings promptly agree with that statement. If you leave the room before any example is given you will carry a sense of perfect community. As if natural law had spoken the same poetry in the human hearths at both sides of the Vortex. Pretty and false.
For instance, no sane Sharitarne would ever lie to a children about the death of a beloved pet, or about any other death: "we took Bonbon to a farm" simply does not happen. Is beyond the horizon of plausible behavior for civilized Sharitarnes (and far more so for wild folk, generally speaking). No sane Sharitarne avoids mention sexual subjects in the presence of children either, or hide sexual intercourse between animals, or between slaves, from the eyes of children. Slaves are often punished in public as well, and the public do not exclude children.
Incidentally most free people in most parts do not have sex in public, free women do hide their bodies carefully from the eye of free men. While free men do not extend themselves in graphic details of sexual nature when free women are participating in the conversation. They also avoid to have sex with slave-girls when free women are present, usually. Those are deferences due to free women, and possibly to young girls how are close enough in age to be considered almost adult women. Those deferences are not associated to children.
Sharitarnes do not pay attention to children when they are having sex. They do not shame children on purpose for their sexual curiosity and answer questions about facts of life openly enough, with the true as they know it, without consider twice what impact their answers will have on the children. If any.
"Pedophilia" is an Earthing concept that puzzles Scholar Castes as much as men and women from other Castes.
According to Sharitarnes those who are not biologically adults are not sexually attractive, they may be pretty, certainly, but not sexually arousing. Those who are biologic adults are adults. Neither children nor "teenagers": least as far as sexuality is involved. You cannot "sexualise" then any more than you can "rockalise" a rock.
Is possible, even usual, to find biologic adults who are not legal citizens yet. Is less frequent to find biologic children who are already citizens (happens with Noble Castes and Mage Castes, not often but happens). Those circumstances to stretch social protocols some now and them, but more as a matter for jokes than as a serious concern.
"Children are children" does not authorize anyone to interfere in the way the responsible adult educate those under his or her responsibility, you do not provide unsolicited advice in matters of children in most social contexts on Sharitarn. Unless you are close enough, a very trusted friend. Even them it is advice, to be accepted or not, never direct interference. (well Peasant Castes fall on a shady area about that, but you can say that all peasants in a settlement are the responsible guardians of a children for most practical purposes).
"Children must be protected" seldom applies to the petty cruelties perpetrated by other children. There is no world for "bulling" on Merchant Language, but the young humans are at least as mean to each other on Sharitarn as they are on Earth. Children hurt each other all the time, sometimes physically and eventually with some bone braking consequences, and that is seem as normal part of being children. Only extreme cases are stopped and punished. Usually adults look on the other way and let children set their differences without interference.
"Children are children" do carries a somewhat socialist meaning that strikes Earthling as amazing contradiction, for being supported by a civilization fully based on a caste system. Slave children are children, first and for most. Noble Caste children are children in the same sense. The future king of any civilized city will have his nose broken by any slave boy, or girl, in the castle, the slave puppy will mop the floor with his royal face, and no adult will raise a finger to interfere: THAT is what "Children are children" means on Sharitarn.
Adults laugh at those reminiscences, all having countless of them to remember. Some where they where beaten, others where they did the beating . To "settle scores" of childhood using the weight of your social status as adult would be more than impolite. It would be dishonorable.
In any case, not all children are as violent as average of course. And _more often than not _ boys are more physically violent than girls. Regardless the variations every Sharitarne child is violent in some way, and their guardians are supposed to be proud of that impulse for aggression. Usually they do find pride in that.

   As for the barbarians...   

    Civilized people let their future kings be used to mop the floor by their companions of childhood because they want them to have childhoods. An essential part of being a child is to deal with other children, play and sometimes take a beating: "you don't protect a child from be a child, because if you do that child will never be an adult" they say. 
    There is limits for that logic. 
    Among civilized people "allow the children to be children" do not necessarily include allow them to face serious risk of death very often. They will play dangerous games, climb high buildings, run between the legs of cargo beasts that could smash them into paste if they step in the wrong direction or don't move fast enough. Looks terrible from the perspective of Earthling iis, but serious accidents are actually not as frequent as you would expect. Deadly accidents are ever rarer. 
   You look a place like Glass Anvil Park on Shirshan. Wild animals, some of them predators large enough to kill an adult, some of them poisonous, all free on this park inside city walls, separated from the citizens by no visible barrier. You see groups of children running through this park, as free as the animals, most the time with no adult to watch them. It seems terribly dangerous, gives nightmares in some Earthling parents newly elevated to citizenship on Green Poison. The natives will tell those parents that: "when children know the dangers, are tough the ways to prevent the worse consequences, and know help may not arrive in time if they act stupidly, they usually behave well and stay safe".     
    Goes that way, yes. Inside civilized cities and generally speaking. 
     Death rates among children by accident and by violence combined are about the same one Earth and on Sharitarn urban areas. A important percentage of those Earthling deaths are from crime, many of them specifically from Genocide Terrorism, and a significant portion is from suicide: while no statistically relevant criminal violence against children exists on Sharitarn (unless you apply Eathling legislation to Sharitarne cities, what would be ridiculous). Suicide of children is virtually non existent on the Planet Blessed by the Vortex.      Among Peasant Castes "be allowed to be a child" does include be allowed to risk death far more often. Barbarian children "die like flies" say some Earthlings. On Earth in 2090 that's just a expression, flies do not "die like flies" anymore because they are extinct. When flies still existed, perhaps they do died as easily as barbarian children on Sharitarn. 
    Comes up to that: 
     You are a barbarian hunter, you are coming back home and you see a group of children 3 to 12 years old surrounded by hungry iapis. You jump to safe them without a hearth beat of hesitation. All children go home safely, perhaps you killed a couple of iapis in the process. End of story. 
     By "end of story" what I mean is that: no one will tell the children they cannot play in that area. No one will hunt the iapis away or build fences to prevent them from reach the playground. No one will post adult hunters as sentinels to watch the children and protect them from the animals. And if next time you arrive a minute too late, and the iapis have already killed one of the children, certainly no one will suggest the possibility of hunt the killing animal down. 
     Exercise vengeance against non-talking animals is preposterous, it make no sense. Or so believe the barbarian tribes. 
     No one criticizes a parent who grow mad and leaves to track down and kill the animal who ate his children. Is sad, and pitiful for all, however: not the expected behavior. Seldom happens. 
     Not to say the children are left defenseless, far from that. They are though how to deal with the most common treats found in the region, and they are trained to fight. To run away. And to ask themselves if the situation asks for the first or for the second strategy. Older children are oriented to take care of the younger ones, but that is almost natural among wild people and demands no words in most cases.
      That said, barbaric children are left for themselves very often. Even more often than civilized ones. And they are always in a dangerous place, even when they are in company of adults: because all the wildlands on Sharitarn are an extremely dangerous place to be.

SOCIAL DARWINISM

"But that's social Darwinism" say the involuntary immigrants of Earth, all too often, when the matter of childhood is mentioned on Sharitarn. As if the expression was pejorative, self-evidently false, and the mere mention of it had the power to close any argument once and for all.
Oddly or not, it has not such power.
Sharitarnes do not know who Darwin was, but most what he found out by observation and invented by inductive imagination wild sigraxes found out using Divination Magic more than 8 billion years ago. There was never a time when civilized men of Sharitarn didn't knew than species evolve from each other, by internal and aleatory variation between individuals and natural selection of those better adapted to survival and more able to reproduce.

   
Ironically, spontaneous creation of life ex nihilo is a documented fact on Sharitarn, rare but possible. That took longer for Sharitarnes to realize, because it do involves magic and is harder to get knowledge of magical phenomenons by divination spells.
When Earthlings explain "Darwinism" your average Peasant Caste recognizes what he believes to be fact, true, the way things work in his Universe. From his perspective there is no denying that, there is no denying the fact that living things function that way, nor that humans are a example of living things, and as such also work the same way.
The average Earthling goes back to the conviction that YES the Darwinism is mostly correct, and YES humans are living things, as a product of evolutionary process as any insect or tree, BUT (!): social Darwinism is nevertheless wrong, and cruel, and evil, obviously inaceptable, horrible, irredeemable...
That's how the participation of Earthlings in the conversation ends, usually. After that point Sharitarnes either ignore the ii or resolutely change subject.