What Makes Children Scary?
They’re only children — right?
I asked people to search their phobias and found these creatures topping the fright list:
- Spiders/Insects
- Ghosts
- Monsters
- Demons
- Zombies
- Children
Wait. Children? Some people are weirdos.
Not weird, it turns out. Children are horror story mainstays. In nightmares they’re the monsters; we’re the prey. Their very presence scares us.
Yet in our waking lives, we’re unlikely to be terrified of your 2-year-old nephew, or think twice about babysitting someone’s kids without an army. A man who murders another man is a villain, but if he murders a toddler? The vilest sort of evil.
Adults hold a striking polarity in our view of children. This fascinates me. I’ve speculated on this, which led me to the following theories — in order from kooky to kookiest.
Evil, dangerous children challenge our grip on reality
Innocence incarnate. That’s how society views children. Supposedly there’s no one more uncorrupted than a child. They’re angelic. When you see that assumption ground into dust, it’s more than a little unsettling.
Nor are evil children commonly regarded as only a little evil. Children occupy only the farthest extremes of good and evil in the adult psyche. Take the idea of children as angels and flip it on its head. Now their angelic nature becomes prime turf for demonic alteration. Pure innocence becomes pure evil.
And if children are bestowed limitless power to do with what they will? Terrifying. It distorts reality as children become agents of destruction. Here’s a tiny creature that is underdeveloped in impulse control, morality, reasoning or logic. He’s reckless and possessed by a singleminded drive to get what he wants, to the exclusion of everyone’s best interests. His capacity for destruction is checked only by his helplessness. Take away that helplessness, and there can be no expectation that someone with his mindset will do right with that power.
Evil children stir our deep seated fear of failed parenthood
When you choose to have a child, you’re making a grab for your own tiny version of immortality. What do you do if this creature you’ve created, cared for and that has inherited a substantial part of you — this embodiment of your immortality — turns out to be more villainous than you’d have wanted?
As mentors and guardians to the young, our responsibility comes with a fear of failing our responsibility. We’re afraid of children because we fear failing them as parents. We fear that they’ll be corrupted under our inadequate watch and tutelage, or that they’ll inherit that corruption from our faulty genes. Good horror themes tackle things that have real-world reflections. Our phobia of being terrible parents is a very real-world and potent fear.
What makes children scary to you?
I’d love to know. What scares your friends? Please share this story with them, because I’d love to know that too.
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