Has Childhood Passed Us By?

In the end of Chapter 1 and beginning of Chapter 2, Alice goes through many size changes after she first imbibes the bottle labeled “Drink Me”. Alice’s size changes seem to coincide with the maturity of her actions. When she first haphazardly drinks the bottle, she shows a child’s innocence and immaturity towards situations. Next, she eats the cake in a logical attempt to both grow large and pick up the key or shrink small enough to fit under the door. Alice then shrinks after she cries like a child. Her size depends upon on how she acts. When she acts like a child, she shrinks and she grows when she acts like an adult. Could these changes in her size be representative of how society views children, especially teenagers and pre-teens? There are moments when children act mature beyond our years and others when they act like a bunch of toddlers. Children are expected to act like carbon copies of “mature” society. Does society want children to grow up too fast?

This also plays back into my previous post on whether or not we are killing literature. Are adults eliminating our childhood? How are children nowadays supposed to hold on to their childhood innocence and act like adults at the same time?