The vision for I Love the Child, was to incorporate children from a variety of ages, ethnicities and abilities. The author and artist depict a non-traditional mermaid as a mixed race, gender neutral person with a partial limb rather than the traditional female mermaid with a perfect body and long red or blond hair. The girl in the wheelchair breaks the mold of being incapable by doing a wheelie. Most humans have experienced an emotion similar to one or more of the children depicted within the stanzas.
