Biologically, a child (plural: children) is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty. Some vernacular definitions of a child include the fetus, as being an unborn child. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority. "Child" may also describe a relationship with a parent (such as sons and daughters of any age) or, metaphorically, an authority figure, or signify group membership in a clan, tribe, or religion; it can also signify being strongly affected by a specific time, place, or circumstance, as in "a child of nature" or "a child of the Sixties".
Read more about Child: Legal, Biological, and Social Definitions, Socialization, Attitudes Toward Children, Age of Responsibility, One-child Policy, Child Mortality
Famous quotes containing the word child:
“The child does not begin to fall until she becomes seriously interested in walking, until she actually begins learning. Falling is thus more an indication of learning than a sign of failure.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“Your toddler is no longer a baby feeling himself as part of you, using you as his controller, facilitator, his mirror for himself and the world. But he is not yet a child either; ready to see you as a person in your own right and to take responsibility for himself and his own actions in relation to you.”
—Penelope Leach (20th century)
“The germ of violence is laid bare in the child abuser by the sheer accident of his individual experience ... in a word, to a greater degree than we like to admit, we are all potential child abusers.”
—F. Gonzalez-Crussi, Mexican professor of pathology, author. “Reflections on Child Abuse,” Notes of an Anatomist (1985)