When I was 10 years old, I thought I knew everything there was to know. Granted I was only in the fifth grade. I couldn’t stay up past 9 p.m. or watch scary movies or go anywhere by myself, but I thought I was on the verge of being grown up. The gifts of time and perspective have shown me just how wrong I was.

Looking back at exactly how much a person’s mind develops from the time they are 10 until the time they turn 18, I have to wonder about the Pennsylvania legal system that requires all children over the age of 10 who are charged with murder or homicide to be charged as adults.

The law is currently in the news since the recent shooting of a 26-year-old woman in PA who was 8 months pregnant. The alleged shooter? Her boyfriend’s 11-year-old son. Reading the story, I couldn’t help but cringe as the police reported how the child had hid his youth-sized shotgun under a blanket to hide it from the woman before shooting her, or how he then went to school and the woman’s 4-year-old daughter was left to discover the grizzly scene. But even with those thoughts and images in my mind, I had to wonder about the logic of charging such a young child as an adult.