Tonight, I come before you less as an icon of pop (whatever that means anyway), and more as an icon of a generation, a generation that no longer knows what it means to be children. All of us are products of our childhood. But I am the product of a lack of a childhood, an absence of that precious and wondrous age when we frolic playfully without a care in the world, basking in the adoration of parents and relatives, where our biggest concern is studying for that big spelling test come Monday morning. Those of you who are familiar with The Jackson Five know that I began performing at the tender age of five and that ever since then, I haven’t stopped dancing or singing.
虽然表演和音乐制作的确是我最大的乐趣，可是小的时候我更想和其他的男孩子一样，搭建树上小屋、打水气球仗、玩捉迷藏。但是命中注定我只能羡慕那些笑声和游戏时间，我的职业生活不容停歇。
But while performing and making music undoubtedly remain as some of my greatest joys, when I was young I wanted more than anything else to be a typical little boy. I wanted to build tree houses, have water balloon fights, and play hide and seek with my friends. But fate had it otherwise and all I could do was envy the laughter and playtime that seemed to be going on all around me. There was no respite from my professional life.
不过，每个礼拜天我都要去做“开拓”，这个术语是用于耶和华见证人传教工作的。那时，我就会设想自己的童年和别人的一样充满魔力。而自从我成为名人以后，我就不得不穿戴起肥大的衣服、假发、胡须和眼镜化装出门。我们在加州南部的郊区度过一整天，挨家挨户串门，或者在大型散步区购物中心闲逛，发放我们的《瞭望塔》杂志。我喜欢到那些普通的有郊区特点的房子里去，看那些粗毛地毯，假想着身临其境和孩子们玩强手棋游戏，看老奶奶照看小孩，看所有精彩的、普通的、闪光的日常生活情景。我知道很多人会有争议觉得这没什么大不了，可它们却迷住了我。我常常想自己这种没有童年的感觉是独一无二的，我相信真正能和我分享这种感觉的人更是少之又少。
But on Sundays I would go Pioneering, the term used for the missionary work that Jehovah’s Witnesses do. And it was then that I was able to see the magic of other people’s childhood. Since I was already a celebrity, I would have to don a disguise of fat suit, wig, beard and glasses and we would spend the day in the suburbs of Southern California, going door-to-door or making the rounds of shopping malls, distributing our Watchtower magazine. I loved to set foot in all those regular suburban houses and catch sight of the shag rugs and La-Z-Boy armchairs with kids playing Monopoly and grandmas baby-sitting and all those wonderful, ordinary and starry scenes of everyday life. Many, I know, would argue that these things seem like no big deal. But to me they were mesmerizing. I used to think that I was unique in feeling that I was without a childhood. I believed that indeed there were only a handful with whom I could share those feelings.
前些时候，我有幸遇到了三四十年代的一位童星邓波儿。一见面我们什么都不说，只是一起哭，因为她能分担我的痛苦，这种痛苦只有我的一些密友，伊丽莎白·泰勒和麦考利·库尔金他们才能体会到。我说这些并不是要博得大家的同情，只是想让大家牢记重要的一点——这种失去童年的痛苦不仅仅属于好莱坞的童星。
When I recently met with Shirley Temple Black, the great child star of the 1930s and 1940s, we said nothing to each other at first. We simply cried together, for she could share a pain with me that only others like my close friends Elizabeth Taylor and McCauley Culkin knew. I do not tell you this to gain your sympathy but to impress upon you my first important point — it is not just Hollywood child stars that have suffered from a nonexistent childhood.
现在，这已经是普遍存在的痛苦、全世界的灾难。童年已经成为了当代生活的巨大牺牲品。在我们身边，我们为了分数使很多孩子没有了欢乐，不曾得到相应的权利，不被允许自由，而且还认为一个孩子就该是这样的。现在，孩子们被不断地鼓励成长得快一些，好像这个叫做童年的时期是一个累赘的阶段，大人们很不耐烦地想着法儿让它尽可能快地结束。在这个问题上，我无疑是世界上最专业的人士之一了。我们这一代正是废除亲子盟约必要性的见证人。
Today, it’s a universal calamity, a global catastrophe. Childhood has become the great casualty of modern-day living. All around us we are producing scores of kids who have not had the joy, who have not been accorded the right, who have not been allowed the freedom, or knowing what it’s like to be a kid. Today children are constantly encouraged to grow up faster, as if this period known as childhood is a burdensome stage, to be endured and ushered through, as swiftly as possible. And on that subject, I am certainly one of the word’s greatest experts. Ours is a generation that has witnessed the abrogation of the parent-child covenant.
心理学家出版的书中详述了否认自己的孩子而产生的消极后果，而无条件的爱对他们的智力和性格的健康发展是极其必要的。因为被忽视，很多孩子基本上封闭了自己。他们渐渐疏远自己的父母亲、祖父母以及其他的家庭成员，我们身边那种曾经团结过一代人的不灭的凝聚力就这样散开了。这种违背常理的行为滋生了一代新人，让我们称它为O代，它从X代接过了火炬。O代表拥有所有外在的东西——财富、成功、花哨的衣服和昂贵的汽车，但他们的内心却是痛苦和空虚的。胸口的空洞，心灵的荒芜，那些空白的地方曾经搏动着我们的心脏，曾经被爱占据。其实，不仅孩子们痛苦，父母亲也同样受煎熬。我们越是培养孩子们早熟，我们就越远离天真的品质，而这种天真的品质是值得保留在成年生活中的。
Psychologists are publishing libraries of books detailing the destructive effects of denying one’s children the unconditional love that is so necessary to the healthy development of their minds and character. And because of all the neglect, too many of our kids have, essentially, to raise themselves. They are growing more distant from their parents, grandparents and other family members, as all around us the indestructible bond that once glued together the generations, unravels. This violation has bred a new generation, Generation O let us call it, that has now picked up the torch from Generation X. The O stands for a generation that has everything on the outside—wealth, success, fancy clothing and fancy cars, but an aching emptiness on the inside. That cavity in our chests, that barrenness at our core, that void in our center is the place where the heart once beat and which love once occupied. And it’s not just the kids who are suffering. It’s the parents as well. For the more we cultivate little adults in kids’bodies, the more removed we ourselves become from our own childlike qualities, and there is so much about being a child that is worth retaining in adult life.
迈克尔·约瑟夫·杰克逊（1958年8月29日—2009年6月25日），是一名在世界各地极具影响力的流行音乐歌手、作曲家、作词家、舞蹈家、演员、导演、唱片制作人、慈善家、时尚引领者，被誉为流行音乐之王（King of Pop）。
迈克尔·杰克逊拖着刚刚摔伤的右脚，架着双拐在久负盛名的英国牛津大学为保障儿童权益进行了演讲，宣传由他捐资设立的儿童慈善机构。
