Interesting article (re: kids' sociteal roles)

I'll post an excerpt from the article, but I recomment reading the entire thing:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2220/is_3_41/ai_57748229/
"His central premise is that childhood is socially constructed by adults, thus a cultural concept more than a biological factor: "The child is functional, a malleable part of our discourse rather than a fixed stage; `the child' is a product of ways of perceiving, not something that is there" (19). As a result of adult desire, projection, nostalgia, and frustration, childhood is a repository of negations, defined by lack. Kincaid views this process as eroticizing youth. But as a pedophilic culture, the West (Kincaid is diplomatically general in his finger-pointing) is in denial, creating a mythology of pedophile scapegoats from which to distance and through which to purify ourselves. Rather than denying that true pedophiles exist, he argues that there is also a degree of pedophilia in the imagery and discourse of mainstream culture that must be recognized as such if we are to change the myths and constructions that perpetuate it."