A child"s purity should not be protected from the harsh realities of the world.

"Unfortunately, it appears as though my opponent, who has registered himself as Con, either has opted to present us some semblance of cognitive dissonance in a maneuver to keep us on our toes, or has mistakenly chosen the side he in fact disagrees with. Because he has listed himself as "Con," he needs to argue against this resolution. That is, he needs to argue that a child's purity should be protected from the harsh realities of the world. However, his opening argument -- in fact, his only argument -- does not accomplish that. In fact, he argues for my side: he claims that parents who "baby their kids" cause their children to grow up socially awkward, without the capacity to properly function in society. Effectively, he is conceding the debate before it has even begun by admitting that parents should not shield their children from the harsh realities of the world. However, I will offer further arguments on this, which obviously, given the fact that this is a one-round debate, Con will not be able to refute. Because he has not offered a single argument in favor of his side, I only need a single contention in order to win this debate. Contention 1: Note that this resolution says "child. " A parent can only protect his or her child from the harsh realities of the world -- or, I should say, "attempt" to protect his or her child. Not only is it quite probably that the parent cannot physically shield the child from every conceivable harsh reality by virtue of the fact that the child will likely experience these harsh realities anyway, whether they be in school, at a sporting event, in the local neighborhood, etc. ; but, also, parents cannot possibly protect their children from these realities when they are no longer children. This doesn't necessarily address teenagers, whom some may consider children, but more so adults. After the children grow up, they're going to have to face these harsh realities at some point. You cannot possibly shield them from these realities. So, not only is attempting to protect children from harsh realities merely prolonging the inevitable, but it exacerbates the problem when they eventually grow up and have to face these realities because, if we accept that they have never had to experience them, they won't know how to react. Let's take the harsh reality of rejection, for instance. A parent wanted to prevent her child from feeling rejected, so she disallowed him from participating on his school's sporting team. Then, the child turns 18 and applies to college. He has never been rejected before, let's say, but receives several rejection letters in the those infamous small envelopes (we've all been there). Essentially, the parent, while undoubtedly well-intended, presented to her child a fantasy: a fantasy of a world where rejection doesn't exist. Surely it does. But, now that her child is 18, it's virtually impossible for her to protect him any longer, so rejection will simply be more painful than it otherwise would be because he now needs to learn how to cope. Conclusion: Con has in fact argued in favor of my side of this resolution and presented no arguments for his own.