CHILDREN

Childrearing in the Canopy varies from settlement to settlement, and even from individual to individual. For the most part children are are regarded as a community responsibility, and some may be unaware of their biological parents as they were raised collectively by an entire village. Other Canopians are devoted parents, and lineages can be important to some nobility--although it is not uncommon to hand-select an heir to a fortune and title, rather than having a child to secure it, and this is seen as equally valid by most people.

Canopian children are born largely helpless, opening their eyes at approximately one week of age but remaining fully dependent on caregivers for the first few years of their life, unable to walk, climb, or eat solid foods. Infants may nurse, or may be fed special preparations of liquid food if there is no nursing Canopian available to them. After this period, Canopians grow rapidly, and are playful, active, and curious. Like human children, they are equal parts fragile and resilient, and often have to be kept out of trouble for the sake of their own health and wellbeing--a task that can be quite difficult!

Canopians develop rapidly--a necessary evolutionary advantage in the treetops. They will begin eating solid food within six months of birth. Canopian children can generally walk by a year of age, babble simple sentences by age two (also the age at which they are fully weaned), converse fluently by three, and are considered children, no longer toddlers, by age four. Their childhood development is rapid and brief, and they are teenagers at approximately seven or eight years of age and fully mature adults with fully developed brains and bodies by age ten, able to completely fend for themselves and considered grown members of society.

Adoption is common for foundlings and orphans, either by individuals or groups. This is not the only way to acquire a child, however...

PARADISE CHILDREN

In addition to biologically conceiving offspring, Canopians have another option: Paradise Children. While this is a blessing most commonly sought by same-sex couples, infertile couples, and single Canopians who long for a child, it can also be the collective effort of a village with a dearth of young people, or even farming collectives who are struggling for future generations to sustain their labor in years to come.

Whatever the reason for desiring a Paradise Child, the process is much the same: the couple, a delegate for the village, or an individual Canopian makes a pilgrimage to the White Tree. This is not a place where many Canopians like to spend time, aside from Ritualists. In addition to the superstitious reverence of hallowed ground, the tinkling chimes of the bones of Canopians long since past, strung thickly through the branches, can be unsettling.

Nonetheless, this is where the concentration of spirit is most powerful: it is believed that the ghosts of dead Canopians haunt the Tree, and that this is where the essence of the Paradise Child comes from, although some argue otherwise. In any case, the hopeful parent or delegate must devote themselves to a series of prayers and rituals--what specifically this entails varies from village to village and person to person--and remain a tenant in the White Tree until their prayers are answered. This may be a single evening, or it may be weeks on end, but most Canopians agree that if the prayers are not answered within a month, the time is not right for a Paradise Child, and the supplication must be renewed on a future date. Those who do not earnestly desire a Paradise Child and are unprepared for its care will find that they will never, no matter how many times they return to the White Tree, receive a blessing, and some even say that to do so will visit a curse of sickness on the supplicant.

It is unknown how Paradise Children arrive. The seekers fall into a deep sleep, and when they awake the Child--or Children--is swaddled in a soft blanket in their arms. Not even Ritualists have ever witnessed the moment of arrival, but enough supplicants have claimed to have awoken to a whir of rainbow-colored, iridescent wings for the generally accepted story to be that they arrive--as their name suggests--borne by Birds of Paradise. Some few supplicants even claim that they found a single Bird of Paradise plume tucked into the swaddling of their new baby, but such stories are rare.

Paradise Children reflect the appearance of their supplicants: if sought by a couple, they appear to be biological children. If sought by a collective, they may combine many elements of the group, or may even take on the appearance and markings of a village's treasured totem animal or revered ancestor. They are considered in every way equal to biological children, and are also no more special than them in terms of intelligence or hardiness. If one finds an abandoned child, there is absolutely no way to discern if it is a Paradise Child or a normal child, and as such there is no social distinction between them.