Childhood Innocents

Beginning

Over the past century or two, age of monarch has fallen quite a lot. Many parents do not regard this as a good thing. An eleven or twelve year old daughter is emotionally a child, biologically a woman. Problems.

With the progress of medicine, we should be able to cure this problem fairly soon--come up with a medicine that delays the onset of puberty. You don't have to worry about your daughter getting pregnant at fourteen, because at fourteen she's still a child.

Fifteen? Sixteen? ...

Two variants:

One lets you slow physical aging. Perhaps it is how we greatly extend life expectancy--slow down the aging processes, starting at age one. So a twenty year old looks like a ten or twelve year old. Physically is a ten or twelve year old. Intellectually--twelve year olds are as bright as adults, they just don't know as much. But this one does. Emotionally? But it gets you to age 180.

The other is much less radical. Kittens are more fun than cats. If only they remained kittens longer. Much longer. Wonders of modern medicine.