Yeah. It was horrible but literally “need to grow up fast” as a kind of pseudo protection from the demon that is pennywise.
The entire book is a series of horrors. Another story that hits just as hard but in a different way is Needful Things. Definitely an apt metaphor for how people can be cajoled and manipulated into doing heinous things.
It’s definitely messed up just like the old vampire in the body of a 13 year old in the Diaries of a Vampire series.
It’s fair to have an issue with it but what about all the other books?
I bet I can guess what they don’t like about them and that isn’t it