Raising a child requires governing an existence at once animal-like and human.

Evidence

For the great difficulty is to contain within a fixed framework a mysterious existence like that of animals, turbulent and disorderly, like the forces of nature, but human nonetheless; one cannot train a child in silence like training a dog, nor persuade him with adult words: he plays on this ambiguity, pitting words against the animality of sobs and tantrums, and constraints against the insolence of language. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1518

Categorization

• XREF: The child as a borderline being between animal and human resonates with existentialist themes of ambiguity and the For-itself/In-itself distinction from Sartre. — connects to: Animals embody a Utopian unexchangeability that children instinctively love. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 253; Man defines himself as human by contrast with animal irrationality; The human-animal line was drawn at awareness of punishment. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 635

Broader Connections

• Man defines himself as human by contrast with animal irrationality #complicates (0.78)
• The human-animal line was drawn at awareness of punishment. #complicates (0.72) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 635