Children’s Art

So at my job, just like everywhere else this time of year, we get holiday cards from people and businesses we’ve dealt with over time. Our first one arrived a couple days ago, with some artistic image of Texan cowboy boots or something on it (that’s Christmassy somehow, I guess?). Well, it was one of those cards where their images are made by children as some sort of charity thing. Okay, that’s cool.

Except when I glanced at the back of the card, then I got annoyed. Among the explanations that the cards help kids with cancer, good stuff like that, was that this card’s artist was from Midland, Texas… and was 18 years old.

Uhh, no. Just… no!

Even obvious youth rights qualms aside, what the fuck? An 18-year-old is not a child. That’s not even close to negotiable. And even if you were the type who thinks that age of 18 is even slightly still child-like (which still makes you a git), generally that doesn’t include categorizing an 18-year-old’s drawing as “children’s art”!

It’s incredibly unfair to the, you know, actual children, the people under the age of 13. I mean, the whole idea behind having a children’s art sort of thing as somewhat separate from the general is that they don’t have to compete with those who are much older and have had much more time to perfect their artistic skills. Yes, I’m generalizing, as that’s not always true, as I’m 27 and I’m sure most 5-year-olds could draw better than I can. But in any case, that idea is that it’s to promote art done by children, stuff from the viewpoint of children. When you go raising the threshold for who qualifies as a child, to the point that a big chunk of this “child” age group includes adults, you’re defeating that purpose and still silencing the actual children.

In fact, if this weren’t something designated as “children’s art” and it said the artist is 18, then I’d be a bit more impressed, glad to see young adults being represented in the general pool, up against the older folks. Same as if the artist were even younger. Just because there may be a “children’s art” designation doesn’t mean children shouldn’t still be part of some general pool, after all. A specialized one is because they are so marginalized so it’s like providing a small pond for them to be big fish in when they’d still be small fish if out in the open ocean. And in order for that specialized small pond to be useful at all, stop throwing big fish from the ocean into it! That is insulting and detrimental to everyone involved.

And if it bothers you that there is this “(actual) children only” zone, well, don’t forget that unfortunately there are “adult only” zones, whether ruled that way or implied. It’s called… everywhere else!