The news is not good for children in France, the year is off to a bad start for them. Take two pieces of information recently published in our major newspapers: we have such a hard time tolerating their presence in public spaces that we are setting up child-free sections on trains. Same thing for planes or restaurants.

Banned. Out !

But… why should kids be banned? What is put forward disguised as an explanation are the nuisances (noise, waste, behavior, etc.) which goes beyond the usual tolerance of the post sixty-eight generation.

The other worrying information concerns the obesity rate among children – but also among adults – which continues to increase, as it does in many countries. It is a real health problem, a scourge which has multiple causes of course.

Psychoanalysts have already taken the pulse of this social evolution (if indeed it is one!) from their observation and operating positions: their offices and institutions where they practice. And it is true that their clinical tools allow them to see that the chemical or surgical response is only a patch, as proven by the work of our EPEP (School of Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis) for 25 years.

What to say then? Or rather from where to say since the solution is relatively simple and is within our reach, is found in the very structure of language. It is not a question of chasing away children and postponing the parental mission until later, when we know that there is a logical time to respect. And there is no point of making adults feel guilty about what Freud called, kidding but not kidding, the impossible job of educating the next generation. No spanking on the horizon either – even if it is necessary to articulate the three registers of Lacan, meaning the real (no parenting by zoom therefore!).

Language has within it a form of authority that is neither nice nor mean and which, if we take it seriously, creates clear places for everyone. Instead of declaring children persona non grata, while stuffing them with “unlimited plans” for our comfort, we would do better to analyze what prevents parents – in each individual story but also in today’s society – from doing the punctuations and cuts necessary to grow… even if they get a bad rap.

Omar Guerrero