Innocence or naivete?

"they realize that people do horrible things for no reason"

I figured that out from what other kids did, by the time I was ... maybe six? I knew kids could be mean even earlier, but it took a little longer to realize that some kids needed absolutely no reason at all to be mean.

By contrast, adults were pretty reliably nice to me.

So going by your account, which I think is very well stated, it would seem preferable to be introduced to sexuality by someone who was less likely to be cruel than another child.

Your account also makes me realize that we have an issue with definitions here. "Innocent" comes from the Latin and literally means "harmless". As we have seen, however, children can cause harm (in their limited way) from a very early age. In the religious sense, "innocent" refers to a state of being sinless, which might be best translated into modern English as "without error" - and of course we know that children make errors from the moment they are born - error is part of the human condition. Your description of what people mean when they say children are innocent, however, is closest to what you described as children being naïve - which is essentially to say, ignorant. These adults want to extend childhood ignorance on the theory that "ignorance is bliss".

The questions we should answer, then, are "is ignorance bliss?" and "is ignorance good for children?"

Is ignorance bliss? Those who look back on their childhoods and remember the wonder of Santa Claus may think so, but are children who don't believe in Santa Claus really missing out on anything? The world can be a magical place even for those who don't believe in magic - as many physicists would tell you. I recall playing with a water hose for hours as a child, causing a mist in the air and watching small rainbows form - and I have observed other children do the same. That is magical, and requires no deceit. Likewise in cases of the failings of others: is being unaware of the dangers of trusting others really blissful? Will it still be blissful when the inevitable happens? I don't think so. A child does not have to believe that every person is always good to appreciate the ordinary goodness in the people that they do know.

So, is ignorance good for children? On the contrary, teaching a child early not to rely too much on the promises of others may go a long way towards keeping them safe from promises that are not kept, whether by accident or design. That first broken promise may still be a shock, but it won't hurt so much if they have placed less reliance on the promise to begin with. If, for instance, they have been taught to have contingency plans.

So the case for childhood naïveté is not a strong one. It does not appear to address the needs of children, but of adults who wish to live a fantasy through their children - and at their expense.

Which gives us the question: is our cult of childhood innocence really about protecting children, or is it closer to parents sacrificing their children to Moloch in hopes of obtaining a better life for themselves?