Button, button, who's got the button?
There's a term "Have a button on _____"- which I feel ok about using because I've heard of people who weren't ever even in Scn use it, though they usually call it a "Hot button". (I'm explaining myself because I don't believe in lobbing Scientologese at people.)
So, with that in mind, I will say that I've noticed that most people have a button on children. I am not referring to the love people have for their children or other children for whom they are responsible or with whom they are related or acquainted or their understanding that children are our future and should be loved and protected. All those things are quite true and important! But in addition to that, people tend to have a button on the subject of children. They tend to react about them. Want to discredit someone? Accuse them of messing with kids. In our society, when those accusations occur, people will tend to believe and punish first, ask for proof later. I also remember someone talking about being in an emergency services volunteer type job and was talking about going to Oklahoma City in the wake of the bombing. He was kind of bragging about how he couldn't do that cuz if he found a child's shoe or toy in the rubble, he'd go all to pieces cuz he couldn't handle anything happening to kids. But he was bringing the whole thing up, was the thing.
I have noticed that most skeptics and critics and exes discussing Scn on fora tend to get really pissed off about this thetans in small bodies concept. I remember a thread about some other thing Hub said about kids (and believe me, I think Hub was absolutely bloody awful with kids and didn't have a leg to stand on from which to make pronouncements about caring for kids) and, me being me, always marching to the beat of a different drummer, I said what I thought and it didn't happen to be all that similar to what others on the thread thought. Ended up being accused of, oh, god knows what. It was really emotional for some of the forum regulars.
I am well aware that Scn has some concepts in it that are deeply flawed and even abusive. I don't happen to think that the cultic crap is all due to people misapplying Scn. There're plenty of instances where the problems happened because Scn itself was applied to the letter.
However, when we're discussing the theory that a child is a thetan in a small body, I personally think that's all it is. A spirit is a spirit. Believe me, there's absolutely no end of human rights abuses against children and people of all ages in CofS even notwithstanding that opinion of mine.