Children and Childhood

The other day a friend of mine sent me Michael Meade's Alchemy of Fire lectures. And in it he mentioned an idea that I've heard repeated by others (Robert Bly, James Hillman) in the men's movement of the late eighties and early nineties: We Americans idealize childhood and hate our children. Perhaps this explains why funding is being cut for the arts and general education in the public sphere, or how we've made sex into a plaything.