There is something deeply perverse about using children to promote a political agenda. Children simply don’t know anything about politics. Sometimes children ask questions that help us rethink the world because they’ve had little experience with it — when my 4-year-old daughter asks questions about the universe, that prompts me to further learning and research. But she doesn’t have answers, because she’s a child.

What makes children particularly valuable is their innocence, not their ignorance. The left seems to like conflating the two characteristics. Innocence, as a quality, isn’t about lack of knowledge or gullibility. The fact that everything in the world is wondrous to children is charming, but it’s not something we can truly protect; as children age, they learn more, and they become more jaded, as we all do. We experience moments of wonder throughout our lives but never as we do when we’re young. That’s natural.

But we can protect innocence.