Again and again and again the words written by the great Russian Alexander Herzen about childhood should come back to haunt and accuse us.
“You are confused by categories that are not fitted to catch the flow of life. What is this goal for which you are seeking? Is it a programme? An order? Who conceived it? To whom was the order given? Is it something inevitable? Or not? If it is, are we simply puppets? You think the purpose of a child is to grow up because it does grow up; but its purpose is to play, to enjoy itself, to be a child. If you merely look to the end of the process, the purpose of all life is death”