When I was ten I was very cruel to my cat. I regularly hurt and tormented her, deliberately.

I look back at those behaviours now and find them hard to comprehend. Especially as I'm a cat lover, and as an adult, I'm very gentle with my animals and I'd be horrified if they got hurt by some 'nasty little ten year old brute'.

Even though I recall my cruel ten year old behaviours, I wince at them now. And I don't recall or understand the motivation behind them, nor do I recall questioning the rightness or wrongness of them.

The only way I've understood it, is because I was treated the same way as a child.

That may not be the case for all children who transgress our social codes, but I also believe that children are not generated in a morally pure vacuum.