Title: Suffer the Little Children
Fandom: Pokemon
Rating: G
Length: 478 words
Summary: A woman, on her soapbox, demanding that change must be done for the good of children all over Kanto.
A/N: I love Pokemon, but I have thought about this before. Has a couple anime characteristics, but otherwise it's gen.
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The brunette woman's navy high heels clacked against wood as she stepped onto her fruit crate outside of the Celadon City gym. She took a few more seconds to adjust her blue wired glasses, white blouse, and navy skirt, to double check that her loud speaker was working, and to finally clear her throat. Then, to as many passerby as she could, she spoke.
"Everyone, we are doing a great injustice to our children! Kids as young as ten are dropping out of school in order to hunt, capture, and force innocent animals to fight! Instead of educating our children we are teaching them that it's okay to have Pokemon fight for mindless entertainment. Many of these children wish to become 'trainers' so that they can win special titles in the Indigo League only to give up after placing out of the competition. Then where do they go? To become unskilled workers? From what I've observed, this is true. If this continues, our economy will suffer from an excess of high education required jobs that cannot be filled by the next generation of workers, because they dropped out of school in favor of being entertainers.
"Oh, but there are already some of those working, often with no pay. There are even children as young as fifteen becoming gym leaders. Gym leaders! I also know of one in Pewter City that has to raise his younger siblings because his parents have disappeared, presumably for their own Pokemon journeys. He wishes to ultimately become a Pokemon breeder, but he requires more on the job training before he can. But yet he cannot, and I find that heartbreaking.
"And just the other day I heard two teenagers talking about how they want to join Team Rocket! Team Rocket, for anyone that forgot, is a terrorist organization active throughout the region. The police squads are combating them, but there are also child Pokemon trainers who feel that they should help as well. These are very, very, dangerous people, ladies and gentlemen, and I don't know why anyone would allow their child to come even close to their way.
"I demand, Celadon City, that something must be done. Pokemon are formidable creatures and many are too dangerous to allow a ten year old child to rear and train on its own. Children must learn more than basic math skills and history before going out into the adult world. If nothing changes, not even a raise in the minimum age of beginning a Pokemon journey, what will become of us? What will become of us, besides society deterioration? Is it worth it, all of this? Is it?"
She caught up with her breath, all while looking forward. Not even one person stayed to listen to her as they came by.
Her eyes grew wet. "It's not right," she said, "it's not right at all."