History Main / HideYourChildren

* Completely averted in the ''Website/{{Newgrounds}}'' flash game ''[[http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/71851 Chainsaw the Children]]''.

This is because the {{Media Watchdog}}s won't allow it. Watching children be killed is bad enough, but [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential allowing the player to do it themselves]]? Not a chance. As a result, children will often be conspicuously absent in video games - [[LordBritishPostulate if they were there, somebody would try to kill them]]. [[HandWave Maybe it's a school day.]] If they make an appearance, it's likely the game will prohibit you from causing them harm. Occasionally, a daring game will go out of its way and avert this trope, in which case you can expect an [[RatedMForMoney M-rating]], [[MoralGuardians media controversy]], and possibly poor sales on top of it all. [[EveryoneHasStandards Even Hardcore Gamers Have Standards.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'', there is a peg-legged young boy in Tristram named Wirt with whom you can "gamble" to buy items. In ''VideoGame/DiabloII'', you return to Tristram, which has been overrun by monsters, and you can find Wirt's remains (as well as his peg leg, which you can [[ImprobableWeaponUser use as a weapon]], and a stash of gold he likely conned off the player character in the last game). After defeating Diablo (and either starting a new game or moving on to the Lord of Destruction expansion) go back to the rogue camp from act 1 and combine it with a [[WarpWhistle Tome of Town Portal]] and enter the infamous [[EasterEgg Cow Level!]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza}}'' often features children in side stories and some areas, but you can't see any randomly-generated ones in the overworld. Not that you could fight them anyway; fights are only triggered when someone tries to pick one with you.

* ''VideoGame/FatalFrame1'' has the ghosts of children who will help you some of the time but other times they will attack you like the adult ghosts and have to be dispatched like adult ghosts. It probably helps that defeating a ghost once does not stop it popping up again at a later time -- they'll usually keep hassling you until a suitably dramatic final battle -- and your weapon is a magical camera.
* Undead baby clones show up as enemies in ''VideoGame/DeadSpace''. [[BlackComedy Drop-kicking them into a wall is possible, and even encouraged.]]
** [[VideoGame/DeadSpace2 The sequel]] takes this to a new level. The tentacled babies return, but new to the series are exploding infants called "Crawlers" and swarming five year olds called "The Pack", [[BlackComedy whose heads you can punch off.]]
** Finally {{Averted}} by the third game. {{Justified}} when the setting was a military expedition with a few civilian scientists, so understandably no children were there to be infected. The Lurkers, which were the original dead babies, are now made of dogs.
*** Then DoubleSubverted in the ''Awakening'' DLC, where the Pack from ''2'' makes a reappearance. The reason they show up is because ''[[ReligionOfEvil the Unitologists brought their children with them to Tau Volantis just to infect them]]''.
* ''VideoGame/DeadRising'' appears to play this straight at first glance, due to the fact that out of the 50,000+ zombies in the mall there is not one child. However, the reason that two of the human psychopaths (Adam and Cliff) are the way that they are (Read:Insane) is due to the fact that they had to watch children be killed by the zombies (even worse with Cliff as the kid killed was his granddaughter). Also, one of the survivors who can be rescued by Frank is a woman who was helpless to stop her baby from being devoured by zombies. There is also the EasterEgg on the title screen.

** A bunch of children can be seen at the circus/casino in ''Film/DiamondsAreForever'', but Bond isn't around in that scene. Tiffany Case goes to a balloon blast game to pick up her shipment of diamonds hidden in a plush toy. The game is fixed so she can win the plush toy. The kid next to her quickly figures it out and complains, only for Tiffany to tell him to "blow up [his] pants".

* Film/JamesBond has talked to exactly one child (a young Thai boy in ''Film/TheManWithTheGoldenGun'') in over fifty years worth of movies (1962-2015). Although children are occasionally visible in crowd scenes, they're always mysteriously absent when something violent happens. Largely justified, though, because with the exception of chase scenes, more of the action takes place in non-public areas.

* In ''[[Literature/RiversOfLondon Moon Over Soho]]'', Peter and Nightingale investigate a suburban home whose residents have become vampires. Although photos of the family's children are displayed inside and their unexplained absence from school is one of the things that roused the Folly's suspicions, the actual ''bodies'' of the kids - whether undead or dead - aren't found before Nightingale makes the call to contain the infection by burning the place to the ground.

** Inverted most heavily in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemJugdral'' where the villains have a custom of actively hunting children. The one instance the player encounters this it is possible to save all the children but the game makes it clear this practise has been happening for many years and is a key part of the backstory for several characters. The FinalBoss is also approximately fifteen and possessed by Satan.

** The earlier ''VideoGame/{{SWAT 3}}'' avoided this trope — if you took a mission involving a home invasion, and the call up tells you the family had children, you will very well find and rescue those children. The corollary of having to deal with child hostages is avoided by having them all curled up on a couch or at the side of their bed when you find them, so there's no chance of the player accidentally shooting them and, them being children, no need to put them in handcuffs before calling in to evacuate them.

---> '''Message''': "You can only [=HARVEST=] or [=RESCUE=] Little Sisters."

* Also averted in ''VideoGame/Doom3'', as cherubs look like a kind of mutated human infants, although they may be just demons deliberately made to ''look'' like infants [[ForTheEvulz just for the effect it would have on human enemies]].

** [[VideoGame/Drakengard2 The second game]] had a [[spoiler:child (or childlike) character [[AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever grow to giant size]] in a ''boss battle''. No prizes for guessing what you have to do.]]

* Justified in ''VideoGame/HalfLife2''. The Combine have suppressed human reproduction for many years (it varies between 10 and 20 years, depending on where you look), so City 17 is populated only by adults. The children all grew up. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in the first chapter when Gordon comes across an empty playground — cue ghostly laughter of children. Also, in ''Episode One'', Resistance members will occasionally say "I'm glad there aren't any children around to see this." Doctor Kleiner also states in ''Episode One'', after Gordon and Alyx [[spoiler:take out the Citadel]], that the Combine's Suppression Field has been deactivated and allows humans to produce children again and awkwardly advises the Resistance and all surviving citizens to "get busy".

* In one level of ''VideoGame/{{SWAT 4}}'', you are pitted against a cult and told to expect children inside. Naturally, it would be [[MoralGuardians very problematic]] to have you deal with children as hostages, so the game seems to be in a irreconcilable position. The solution? As you proceed through the level you see cribs, childlike decorations, and stuffed animals — but no children. [[spoiler:Finally, in the basement, you find numerous tiny graves with farewell messages scrawled on the wall, the implication being that the cult members murdered their own children. [[note]]Yes, apparently, implying that children were murdered en masse off-screen [[SkewedPriorities is better]] than giving the player an opportunity to rescue them, even if it risks hurting them in the process. (By the way, the previous sentence was [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential only partially sarcastic]].)[[/note]]]]

-->'''Guard:''' ''"Forget about it, there's no kids here...like....'''no kids'''. Anywhere. At all. It's like children do not exist. Capeesh?"''

* During the Venom tutorial of the ''VideoGame/UltimateSpiderMan'' game, your first order of business is to devour a darling little girl holding a balloon. She is spit back out, but doesn't seem to be moving after that. This is a parody of the above ''Spider-Man 2'' missions.

* The base game of''VideoGame/{{Rimworld}}'' is a straight example, although colonists as young as fourteen can join your settlement, but a GameMod to avert the trope was developed based off the existing code that lets animals reproduce. The ''Biotech'' DLC makes it an aversion with an official reproduction system for colonists, and optionally, the ability for other factions to send child raiders against your base. If you capture them you can treat them with the same VideoGameCrueltyPotential you perpetrate against adult prisoners.

* One of the levels in ''VideoGame/HitmanBloodMoney'' has our hero carry out a hit on a mobster in witness relocation during a child's birthday party. The clown is there, the caterer is there, but neither the kid nor his teenaged sister is anywhere to be found.
* ''VideoGame/HitmanAbsolution'' lampshades this. At the beginning of a level that involves a thug assault on an orphanage, there is a cutscene in which 47 overhears two nuns discussing how all the children are away on a field trip.

* In ''VideoGame/LuigisMansion'', of all games, some of the enemies are small children. Of course, they're already dead.

*** Played straight with non-human races. You only see human children in the game, not [[OurElvesAreDifferent Elven]] or {{Beast|Man}}Race children. Arguably justified in both cases, as the game takes place in Skyrim, a human land several provinces removed from the homelands of most Elves and Beast Races. Additionally, the Elves have [[ImmortalProcreationClause a low birth rate]] and are LongLived, while the Beast Races have elements of BizarreAlienBiology going on. That said, game mods once again are available to avert the trope, allowing you to adopt non-human children such as the absolutely adorable Khajiit children.

** ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'' has children as beggars, but they cannot be harmed.

[[folder:Film]]

** Despite visiting many colonies and other places where families clearly live, no children are ever seen in the first two games. Partially excused by Shepard spending most of his time on military bases or small colonies and research facilities where families wouldn't be living anyway, but it is still a little odd to never see any on the Citadel or Illium... or Horizon, for that matter, especially because children are specifically mentioned in an e-mail received after the Horizon mission.

* ''VideoGame/{{Rimworld}}'' is currently a straight example, although colonists as young as fourteen can join your settlement, but a GameMod to avert the trope was developed based off the existing code that lets animals reproduce. It remains to be seen whether a future release makes this feature official, and given that the game has avenues of VideoGameCrueltyPotential that startle even a seasoned ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' player, some people would really rather this didn't come to pass.

* ''VideoGame/CantrII'': Everyone spawns [[note]]the term generally used for when a new character is created[[/note]] at the age of twenty. This doesn't stop some people [[BabyTalk acting like 2-year-olds]] except when it comes to [[{{Squick}} adult relations]]. Nothing says in-character like a child who can't operate a hammer, but bounces the bedsprings like a champ.
** [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Beds with bedsprings aren't implemented.]]

* In ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'', the only child is [[spoiler:shown after the credits after all the bloodshed is over]]. In ''[[VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes2DesperateStruggle Desperate Struggle]]'', [[spoiler:the only child in the game, Matt Helms, is immortal, since he made a [[DealWithTheDevil pact with Satan]]. Also, [[SelfMadeOrphan he's a killer himself]], and [[HumanoidAbomination rarely looks like a kid]]]].

* Despite the series emphasis on families and carnage in suburban homes, no pre-teen children have had any role in the ''{{Film/Scream}}'' series.

** This trope is [[InvertedTrope horribly, horribly inverted]] in the first game. First off, there is a stage in Leonard's side-story in which you are forced to fight the child-soldiers of the Empire, who are [[MindControl brainwashed as the rest of the Empire's soldiers are]]. As you are [[KillEmAll slaughtering them all]], Leonard cries out, "But Caim, they're just children!" Your dragon then loudly declares "Soldiers are soldiers!" and ''encourages'' you to carry on. [[spoiler:Leonard's major regret (before you even meet him) is that he was unable to prevent the slaughter of the child soldiers under his command... because he was off in the woods masturbating. Even with his [[PedophilePriest attractions]], Leonard is one of the most sympathetic characters in the game.]] The world of Drakengard is not a happy one.

* Film/JamesBond has talked to exactly one child (a young Thai boy in ''Film/TheManWithTheGoldenGun'') in over fifty years worth of movies (1962-2015). Although children are occasionally visible in crowd scenes, they're always mysteriously absent when something violent happens.
** 2021's ''Film/NoTimeToDie'' averts this ''big time'', and twofold: there's the first part of the [[TheTeaser prologue]] in Madeleine Swann's childhood in which she almost died by the hand of Lyutsifer Safin, and then [[spoiler:Madeleine's daughter Mathilde, who's been fathered by Bond]]. Bond even prepares her something to eat [[spoiler:and goes all PapaWolf to protect her in the climax.]]