When one thinks of innocence, what comes to mind? A white rose? Youth? Babies? Virgins? All of these things are icons of one simply complex idea. Innocence is the idea that someone or something is pure; something is free from sin and moral wrongs. According to the Christian religion, Jesus himself, is the only person born free from sin.

   When we are born we have not yet sinned, therefore we are pure and deemed innocent. Our wrongdoings aren’t considered sins until we have the conscious capability of understanding that what we are doing is wrong. If we knock over our drinks as a baby and throw our food, we aren’t capable of understanding that it’s wrong until someone teaches us.

   As we get older, we begin to learn right from wrong and the idea of innocence shifts. Innocence is viewed as naiveté. In middle school the focus of life is “becoming cool” (if you don’t have the self esteem to be who you are.) If you are naive in middle school and aren’t educated on the scandalous drama and disgustingly perverse vocabulary, you are made fun of. You shake off the fact that you don’t understand what they are talking about but you begin to agree with them; you are a sheltered child and you are very unaware of the world you have just entered into, a world of crazy preteens. In this preteen world, innocence is no longer something to get googly-eyed over, it’s looked down upon.

   When you reach high school, all anyone can talk about is the scandalous things they have learned from TV or movies or their "way to old" boyfriend/girlfriend. We learn from the media that sex is something amazing and dangerous. We learn that we need to break all the rules and rebel. We learn that school isn’t something we should care about and that if you are still a virgin by 18 years old, than you are a nerd and no one likes you. But the thing is, none of that media stuff is true. The media constantly influences kids and changes their mind sets, most of the time the kid isn’t even aware of the mind alteration. The kid then goes on to pressure his/her friends and they then go on to pressure theirs. There are a select few who have the power to change their environment. The power to find quality friends who aren’t so evolved into techno-drones that can actually just be friends with you and not judge you. Among these friends innocence is just something that you either have or don’t have. However, in the high school world, innocence is looked down upon because “the entirety of high school” is to have sex, get drunk, and do drugs. Who needs rules when you can just kill your brains cells one stupid idea at a time?

   In the adult world, sex is still highly related to innocence or the lack there of. However, there is a new part of innocence that develops. When you are an adult you can be tried for adult crimes. Innocence can be related to criminal law. So innocence is once again viewed as a good thing.

   Throughout a lifetime, innocence takes many different forms. Some forms are good, some forms are bad. Childhood innocence is the best form that is looked upon as good. As a child you are not responsible for your wrong doing until you know what is wrong, so therefore all of your mistakes are just adorable and possibly slightly aggravating to others, but still cute.