人们为什么如今觉得这样？他们为什么如此害怕对孩子的责任，让他们听理理性，并解释他们在做什么是错误的？玛丽很长一段时间以来一直没有觉得自己可以提供建议，她想知道何时孩子们（家庭中最年轻的成员）突然获得了如此多的权力，以至于他们自己或多或少地是法律。
(Why did people feel like this nowadays? Why were they so scared of chastising their kids, of making them listen to reason, explaining that what they were doing was wrong? Mary had not felt for a long time that she was in a position to offer her advice and she wondered when the children, the youngest members of the family, had suddenly acquired so much power that they were more or less laws unto themselves.)