I went to a conference a while ago about children's ministry. Someone raised that point that we often say things like "We need to care for the children because children are our future." Or we say we need to look after kids because they're "the leaders of tomorrow." Which seems like a nice child-orientated thing to say, except that in essence it devalues children. It says that the value of a child is in their potential, not in who they are now. Really we should value children because they are our present. As much as a teenager, adult, senior citizen is valuable and important, so is a child. They are special not because of who they will become but because of who they have become, from the moment they began existing.

I've thought about that a lot. Kids are pretty awesome.