Seems like I have the categories of time and space covered. Which category, or categories, are you referring to.
Adulthood and childhood are categories of future and past. Your challenge is exactly equivalent to saying, “If the past can affect the future, why can’t the future affect the past?”
The principle, enunciated by Lucretius, that “that cannot be touched which cannot be touched itself”, is sound insofar as it refers to objects conceived as persisting in time. “Adulthood” and “childhood” are not in this category. The closest correct version of your implied principle would be, “If the parent can affect the child, the child can affect the parent.”
Cf. “Dr. Diagoras” by Stanislav Lem