What are children anyway? Midget drunks. They greet you in the morning by kneeing you in the face and talking gibberish. They can't even walk straight.
I don't take trouble at all to conform a screenplay to my iconography. I don't say, "We can't do that - the audience wouldn't accept it. " I try to take the limitations of what is required to play a leading character and then screw with them.