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Most Writers Are Adults: Difference between revisions
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Part of the problem with writers writing like a child is that ''their writing sounds childish'' - which is why this is an omnipresent trope. Also, do not underestimate children; there are pre-adolescents who vaguely understand sexual matters from an intellectual viewpoint, read encyclopedias and other adult literature, and in the past were apprentices in various trades - so they cannot afford to act or speak childishly.
Please note that there is an inverse function to this trope - most writers are adults, but are so aware they're writing for children that certain activities will be excised from underage characters even if it's realistic for that age. So your sixteen-year-old won't be dying to get laid; they're searching for true love, and all relationship interactions will be completely romantic rather than sexual (excepting [[Asexuality|asexual characters]]). And they'll ''never'' smoke, drink, or get high unless it's a [[Very Special Episode]] or the character's an antagonist. Also note that children acting in [[Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour|ways that they shouldn't be able to, i.e. like adults,]] is also a common [[Creepy Child|go-to Horror Trope]].
See also [[Improbable Age]] and [[Vague Age]]. Sometimes results in [[Menace Decay]]. Compare [[Most Writers Are Human]].
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== Anime and Manga ==
* In ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' ten is the age at which one can leave home to become a Trainer and fend for him- or herself. And while they are still called "boys" and "girls" instead of "kids", they still look, talk, and sound more like teenagers. And how do they make money to support themselves (and their Pokémon) if they're traveling all the time and can't hold a job in any fixed location? <ref>It could be argued that the answer to that last question is that it's like in the games, where you earn money by winning battles... but that becomes [[Fridge Logic]] when you remember that you earn money by battling other trainers (who presumably earn their money the same way), [[You Fail Economics Forever|thus making the entire economy basically a giant pyramid scheme]].</ref>
* The ''[[Digimon]]'' franchise, where a bunch of kids are thrust into the middle of nowhere and exposed to powerful [[Mons]] without any adult supervision whatsoever...
** This trope is justified, for ''[[Digimon Adventure]]'' anyway. The kids were ripped out of their reality and placed into the Digital World, and its war, against their will. ''[[Digimon Adventure 02]]'' is bit more dodgy, since they come and go at will, but at least it's simply what the kids choose to do, and they know another world is at stake, and they're the only ones capable of saving it.
** ''[[Digimon Tamers]]'' is the big aversion of the franchise: the characters generally act much more like children, their adventures in the Digital World have clear emotional consequences as one'd expect from children, and they are supported by adults who are instrumental in taking down the [[Final Boss]].
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** May be justified in this case, seeing as how the fictional society in which they live apparently saddles young people with responsibilities up to and including conducting wars at much younger ages than we consider appropriate in ours. Some characters, like Itachi and Kakashi when they were young and Shikamaru take this to the point of being flat out [[Wise Beyond Their Years]].
* ''[[FLCL]]'' [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] the ''hell'' out of this trope, with twelve year olds Naota and Ninamori always trying (and failing) to act like mature adults.
** Of course, they are arguably more successful at it than the ''actual'' adults in the story.
* Slightly averted in ''[[Dennou Coil]]'', with interesting results: The children, acting as children and treating everything as a game, are capable of more in a virtual environment than adults, that act like an adult (save for moderator Tamako and the grandma). When [[And You Thought It Was a Game|the children find out it wasn't an online game at all]], the story becomes ''Japanese horror''.
** They all still act remarkably mature for 12-year olds. It's only very occasionally that their behaviour reminds us that they aren't adults. In fact, combined with the fact that they sound quite mature as well, the only thing that reminds us that they aren't in their late teens is their modest development.
* One point of criticism in the [[8.8|Anime News Network review]] of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' is the seemingly unrealistic maturity of the main character. The first time we see the nine-year-old heroine, she's pondering the direction and purpose of her life, which has been perfectly ordinary so far.
* Very, very averted in everything Hayao Miyazaki ever writes, except the ones that don't actually contain children. Even Markl only acts mature because he's consciously trying to.
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== Literature ==
* Lampshaded in ''[[The School Story]]'', a book about a kid who writes a book. One of the adults mentioned that the author seems to be really good at portraying kids accurately.
* In ''[[The Pendragon Adventure]]'', the "books" [[Literary Agent Hypothesis|are Bobby Pendragon's memories of what just happened to him being recorded]]. He writes in very professional prose.
** During the course of the series, the timeline is different for him than for the characters who primarily stay on earth; he is probably older than expected (and he does write a lot).
* ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''. Justified though, childhood can be eroded in harsh conditions, and one wouldn't be able to act like a dumb kid in this [[Crapsack World]]. For Sansa, who tries to be a good little girl and believes what adults tell her, things do not turn out well.
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* ''[[Ender's Game]]''. The author does point this out in the foreword of some editions, in what amounts to, "So what?" Somewhat justified by the fact that the kids are supposed to be towering geniuses, and most of them are being pushed to their limits. ''[[Training From Hell|Especially]]'' Ender.
** Gifted kids love this book and empathize strongly with Ender. May be a case of [[Reality Is Unrealistic]].
* Averted by the early works of [[Gordon Korman]]. He had his first book published when he was 14, and got into a groove of writing stories about kids that feel genuine in tone (if outlandish in narrative events). Although he's grown up by now, works like ''[[No More Dead Dogs]]'' still feel like they're written by a teenager who happens to be a professional writer.
* ''An American Dream''. Steven Rojack's stepdaughter Deirdre is fluent in French, has a flair for poetry, has an eloquent understanding of marriage dynamics, and apparently believes that "people want to make love after a death". Rojack openly acknowledges this by noting that "she always spoke like an adult".
* Averted very much so by authors [[Beverly Cleary]] and [[Judy Blume]], in different ways. [[Beverly Cleary]]'s books about kids have kids who act their age and even do a great job of making you see the way a third-grader (or first-, or fourth-) thinks and views the world, and are very cute and light-hearted. [[Judy Blume]]'s books are harsher and more towards the cynical scale of the [[Sliding Scale of Cynicism Versus Idealism]], portraying kids who are not only not [[Children Are Innocent|"innocent"]], but featuring very harsh realities (middle schoolers who drink, bullies who do not get their comeuppance).
* ''[[To Kill a Mockingbird]]'' has been accused of using the "cute precocious kid" device to get away with having six-/seven-/eight-year-old Scout know and think things she really probably wouldn't, no matter how smart she was and how much Atticus told her about practicing law. And then there's Dill's philosophizing; you could argue that he's not really supposed to understand the full reach of some of the things he says, but a lot of the time he just sounds a little too knowing. On the other hand, Scout ''is'' supposed to be recalling the plot rather than describing it as it happens, so some at least of the precociousness can be explained by her either "tidying up" what was said or thought through the lens of a rational adult, or simply wrongly attributing stuff in hindsight.
* [[Tamora Pierce]]. Most of her protagonists start out at around ten and grow into their late teens or adulthood, and all the way through they think the same, act the same and talk the same. The [[Circle of Magic]] books, for example, feature a [[Four-Temperament Ensemble]] who all become accredited mages at the [[Improbable Age]] of fourteen and thereafter mix (apparently exclusively) in adult circles, and most any character who even suggests they might not be as mature, capable or knowledgeable as older people is either a [[Jerkass]] to be publicly humiliated, a villain to be defeated, or both.
** Not ''quite'' the same. They each go through a lot of [[Character Development]], and all of them have more empathy and self-control and less tendency to whine in later books compared to former ones.
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* Simultaneously justified and averted in ''[[FoxTrot]]'': the featured pre-teens are Jason and Marcus, whose adult speech and mannerisms are justified by them being a pair of [[TV Genius|hyper-intelligent]] [[Nerd|ultra-nerds]]. Averted in that the two also indulge in childish mannerisms, and their peers behave in age-appropriate manners.
* Most of the point of ''[[Cul De Sac]]'', similarly to [[Calvin and Hobbes]], is taking children and seeing what happens if they're as articulate as adults while retaining their childish personalities.
* ''[[Bloom County]]'' features "children" who work for newspapers, run political campaigns, and hack into government organizations. Granted, this IS a strip with talking animals, space aliens, and tons of breaking the fourth wall so it may be justified as [[Rule of Funny]].
== Painting ==
* Most artwork from the 16th through early 19th centuries tends to portray children as small adults.
** Possibly because children wore the same clothes as adults once they got out of baby clothes. Until well into the 19th century, the only difference between a nine-year-old's clothes and a thirty-year-old's was the size.
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== Web Original ==
* This is a common criticism of the [[Whateley Universe]], which features characters in their mid-to-late teens acting like full-grown adults. The series would make a lot more sense if it was set in a college rather than a high school.
** And then you have the witches, three characters who are presently in middle school, who come up with childishly simpleminded schemes while spouting babytalk. Their odd, stylistically low maturity level can be very jarring when compared to the behavior of real middle schoolers.
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* ''[[Rugrats]]'' is the extreme version of this trope, with 2-year olds that acted like 7 year olds that talked in a language incomprehensible to adults. Even moreso Angelica acted much older than three and was treated likewise by the adults.
** This one was mocked in a Fairly Odd Parents movie, where Timmy Turner enters a show which looks the same, but with the children actually acting like the toddlers they are.
** In ''[[All Grown Up!]]'', the kids are 9-13 years old but they all act like they're about 16. Even more ridiculous is that they all seemed to be ''high schoolers''.
* As time went on, ''[[Jimmy Neutron]]'' slowly started to treat their main characters more like young adults than eleven year old kids, except for when they needed to either for plot reasons or to set up a gag. This is most obvious in the episode "Stranded," which uses every [[UST]] Trope in the book for Jimmy and Cindy.
* All over the place in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''. With all the [[Love Tropes]], [[Drama Tropes]], [[War Tropes]], etc, it's not hard to forget that none of the main characters (bar the [[Big Bad]] and a few mentors) are older than 16, and neither characters nor the plot are held back by their lack of age; the series mixes adult tropes and [[Coming of Age]] tropes, and mixes them very well. Generally, though, it's still a series about two 12-year-olds, a 14-year-old, a 15-year-old, and a 16-year-old who act more like 16-year-olds and two 18-year-olds. Most of the time it's rather tame, but when you consider how young Aang is and how much UST he has with Katara... well, it's rather [[Squick|squicky]]. Most of the other characters avoid this to an extent by being at around high school age, but still, the canon pairings are implied to be Twue Wuv. This tropes is sometimes owed to [[Values Dissonance]] (16 is the marrying age in some cultures in their world, as it was in ours around the same technological age) and [[Lampshaded]] tragedy. These kids ''should'' be able to act more like kids, but that's one of the down sides of war.
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