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I've noticed this for a while now in fantasy fiction.

Even though they are supposed to portray a pre-modern world (+magic), most of them don't contain any children (or at least very few), even in scenes where you'd expect them. All the characters whose family situation we know, have a single child or were an only child themselves. At most they had one sibling. At the same time they live in a terribly dangerous world with extremely high death rates where large amounts of children would be needed just to keep the population stable.

Our group of cool heroes rolls into a small town/village, being the most interesting thing this place has seen in years, and no kids swarm around them asking questions or at least watching everything they do? Just very unbelievable and apparently completely unnoticed by the author.

I think people just forgot to an extent what it's like when kids are all around. To a young childless adult in a big city, children are pretty invisible in real life as well. There are much less of them proportionally than in the past (demographic crisis) and those that are around, are hidden away either in school, daycare or at home. Not just running around outside anymore.

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I wonder how much of this is just the kind of shows people consume as adults. Or if it’s the fact that TV has become less focused on family-friendliness in the last couple of decades. Even shows that have lots of kid focus (eg Stranger Things) aren’t exactly suitable for children.

I like the observation and I’ll keep my eyes open for examples of positive child representation in media. :)

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i was gonna say about about degrassi, but actually those degrassi "kids" are really mini adults written to make obvious mistakes, not actual kids

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