Summary
- The CRM perceives children in The Walking Dead as both crucial to their mission and dangerous because they lack an understanding of what they're fighting for.
- Some believe that children with no memory of the pre-apocalyptic world can build a better future, untainted by past mistakes and corruption.
- The spinoffs show that The Walking Dead children are fighting for a brighter future and should ignore the past rather than trying to recreate what failed before. They have the potential to be better than the adults holding onto the past, like the CRM.
The Walking Dead children have some major problems, at least that's what Jadis and the CRM believe. Children have always been vital to the Walking Dead story. Carl Grimes showed how the zombie apocalypse affects a young mind. He, Judith, and Hershel (Glenn & Maggie's son) have shown an extraordinary ability to adapt. Most of all, however, children represent humanity's future in The Walking Dead. They're why survivors such as Rick, Maggie, and Aaron keep fighting for a better world, and even the mighty Negan showed a softer side when faced with a youngster.
The Walking Dead children might be the bright young things of the future, but for the Civic Republic Military, they're also a major problem. In Walking Dead: World Beyond, CRM convert Jadis Stokes, the former junkyard leader, reveals how her people really perceive children in the zombie apocalypse. On one hand, recruiting clever, science-minded students is imperative for the completion of the CRM mission. On the other, kids are incredibly dangerous because they don't know what they're actually fighting for. As Jadis bitterly points out to Iris, "This is the only world you've ever known... you're far too young to appreciate what has been lost."
Why The Walking Dead Children Are Such A Problem
With the Walking Dead story over a decade into its timeline, Jadis makes a salient point. The likes of Iris and Hope were only six years old when the outbreak began, meaning their memories of the world before are hazy at best. Walking Dead: World Beyond season 2 played on this theme before, showing how Iris hasn't heard the term "narc," proving teenage slang is dying out. As far as Jadis and the CRM are concerned, it's memories of what the world should be that drive their mission to restore civilization forward.
Children are dangerous in The Walking Dead because they lack that mental image of what said civilization should actually look like. CRM leadership is obviously afraid that when all that's left of humanity is older versions of Iris Bennett, Judith Grimes, and Hershel Rhee, The Walking Dead children won't have any idea what "rebuilding" even means.
Did The Walking Dead Ever Fix The Children Problem?
There are two ways of looking at The Walking Dead children issue. One can adopt Jadis' perspective that the young are an impediment to progress and only those who remember life before the outbreak should call the shots. Or you can take the Rick Grimes-inspired viewpoint that children can make the world better than before. The CRM mistakenly sees rebuilding the old world as mankind's only endgame, and this means restoring a world full of violence, corruption, and greed - all three of which the CRM has in plentiful supply.
The Bennett sisters and other Walking Dead youngsters might not remember life before the dead, but Jadis might also be wrong - rebuilding with a completely fresh slate untainted by the past might actually be a good thing. As the final season of The Walking Dead showed, this was not a problem that needed to be fixed. Judith was raised without knowledge of the previous world, but she was taught that the new world needed to be better than the one the zombie apocalypse destroyed. There was no problem to fix because The Walking Dead children's vision of the future was always brighter than the people from before the apocalypse.
Do The Walking Dead Spinoffs Have The Same Kids Problem?
The problem isn't that The Walking Dead children don't appreciate what the past looked like - it is that some adults think that is what is important when rebuilding society. The Walking Dead children are in the right here, and they should definitely ignore the past and build a better and brighter future rather than try to just recreate what failed before. This is something that the spinoffs have shown. Walking Dead: World Beyond showed this as the kids fighting for the future were all better people than the adults trying to hold onto the past, like the CRM.
Furthermore, even heroes like Negan and Maggie have seen their ideals and beliefs challenged. In The Walking Dead: Dead City, Hershel put his mother in her place when she betrayed Negan to get him back, letting her know she was too hung up on her anger from the past to move on to create a better future for them. He even got through to her a little bit. For Negan, when he was raising Ginny, he taught her how to protect herself, but he wanted to keep his own past out of it and let her move on into the future without being beholden to what came before. For The Walking Dead children, ignoring the past is what might be best for their future.