Am i lacking in some form of understanding children’s minds?

This will probably come off as more of a rant than anything, but I’ve built up a decade worth of upsetness that I want to finally let out. I’m 20 years old now, and I remember being 10 like it was yesterday. And let me tell you, it really pisses me off when people treat that time period like it’s some innocent time. I may not have been as mature as I thought, but I was obsessed with absorbing as much “adult” content as I could.

I loved watching Comedy Central in secret, and learning about sexual things from it. I enjoyed swearing, and so did pretty much all my classmates. We also talked about horror movies a lot, and I remember watching a few that even had nudity in them and it didn’t bother me. This was the age where I had my first orgasm (I should probably mention that I thought I knew how sex worked but really didn’t, so when it happened it really freaked me out. I might talk about this more in another question).

But that’s another thing. I don’t understand what the big deal is about kids knowing what sex is. Of course I’m not advocating SHOWING them explicit content, but I really don’t think it’s the end of the world if they understand this basic human practice, which for some reason we have to explain yet every other animal on the planet naturally understands. I remember an outrage a couple years back about these sex Ed classes schools were giving 10 year olds, and I read comments from people saying they never even knew the word sex at that age. This baffled me because THATS ALL I EVER THOUGHT ABOUT AT THAT AGE!

And while now I understand a bit more about things like brain development, at a younger age all I could reason was some form of prejudice. I remember learning in school about the civil rights era and thinking that if adults were discriminating against black people and not letting them do things simply because they were black, then that the same thing was going on with kids. I thought to myself that it feel weird that kids would be driving cars, owning houses, and having jobs, but I believed that people must have thought the same thing about there being no segregation.

I understand now that this is a false equivalency, but even know when I see ratings and age restrictions I just have to think “why? Why that particular age? What makes it more special than all the ones before it?”

But here’s probably where my question becomes most relevant: what is with this whole “think of the children!” Attitude? Sure, there’s content out there that traumatize even adults, but it’s not going to destroy a kid to hear curse words or to see one brief piece of nudity or to know how they came into this world! Every time I see someone outraged about kids being exposed to things I just think “who the fuck cares! They’re gonna learn this stuff anyway, the sooner the better I say!”

Looking back I regret not talking about this more, as it would have made everything SO much more valid! Now I just look like a weirdo. Maybe I’m just holding on to the past, regretful that I had so many gripes that went unresolved. Maybe some of these ideas were expressed in such a demeaning way they had an effect on my subconscious. I really don’t know. I’m just so tired of people assuming that just because someone is younger that they’re completely innocent. I almost feel like an anti-Holden Caulfield.