Eminent New Zealand anthropologist, historian and author Dame Anne Salmond stated ''an ageing society that does not care for its children has a death wish''.
Under those terms, what then do we make of a society that routinely commits atrocities against and permits the slaughter of its children?
Do the perpetrators simply view the young as casualties of war? Collateral damage? Are they victims of birth, geography and circumstance?
The United Nations maintains they are victims of crimes against humanity and have suffered ''grave violations'' by all parties to the conflict in Syria, which has killed about 100,000 people (including more than 10,000 children), internally displaced some 6.5 million (including about 3 million children) and left more than 2.1 million as refugees in neighbouring countries (including 1.1 million children).
The recent United Nations' Report of the Secretary-general on children and armed conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic, the first on the issue to be submitted by UN Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon to the Security Council's relevant working group, lays blame on all sides.
In the report, which covers the period from March 1, 2011 to November 15, 2013, Mr Ban says government forces and associated militias have been responsible for ''the use of weaponry and military tactics that are disproportionate and indiscriminate'' and have ''resulted in countless killings and the maiming of children''.
The report provides details of mass killings of civilians, including children; many shot at close range.
Mr Ban says government forces have also been responsible for ''the arrest, arbitrary detention, ill-treatment and torture of children''.
Children were tortured for their perceived or actual association with the opposition, and reported violence against them included beatings with a range of instruments, ''electric shocks, including to the genitals; the ripping out of fingernails and toenails; sexual violence, including rape or threats of rape; mock executions; cigarette burns; sleep deprivation; solitary confinement; and exposure to the torture of relatives''.
The report also said government forces had used children as human shields.
Mr Ban is also clear about the actions of and atrocities committed by armed opposition groups, saying they have been responsible for ''the recruitment and use of children both in combat and support roles, as well as for conducting military operations, including using terror tactics, in civilian-populated areas, leading to civilian casualties, including children''.
The report details how armed opposition groups have also been involved in mass killings, and engaged in the ''summary execution of children''.
The report details the use of chemical weapons and the targeting of schools, vast numbers of which are damaged or destroyed, and explains how at some of the remaining schools children are being indoctrinated to fight for ''jihad''.
Hospitals have also been targeted, predominantly by government forces, with more than a third out of action and a fifth damaged.
Mr Ban says both parties to the conflict have hampered humanitarian assistance, children have a ''high level of distress'' as result of what they witnessed or experienced through violence, separation and displacement.
The reports says many children have been abducted, held for ransom, and many children have disappeared.
The report is hard-hitting and deeply disturbing. And it almost certainly does not paint the full picture. Because of access and security issues in Syria, Mr Ban says the report, based on UN interviews with refugees, victims and witnesses, is ''indicative only of the scale, the scope and the gravity'' of violations against children there.
That such atrocities can even occur is appalling, that they might only be the tip of the iceberg, unimaginable. And that a raft of national, regional and international efforts to broker negotiations to halt the violence continues to be unsuccessful, shameful.
Children rely on adults to protect and nurture them. Their ongoing abuse on a massive scale is a scourge on all those involved in the atrocities.
While it may take a village to raise a child, those in Syria desperately need the global village to heed their cries before their so-called ''adult society'' lets them be extinguished.
