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This paper studies one characteristic of adults’ linguistic interactions with children: adults may speak about children in the third person, in their presence, without addressing them. We highlight the moral and social consequences of this type of interaction, showing the differences associated with the child’s age. To analyze the child’s status in language, we use the framework of ordinary language philosophy (Wittgenstein, Cavell). Our corpus is literary, consisting of the autobiographical French literature of childhood memories (Jules Vallès, Violette Leduc, Jean-Paul Sartre, Nathalie Sarraute, Annie Ernaux).