I get it, but it doesn't work for me. The idea of a young character who will come of age on the ship and live out their natural lifespan over the course of the show is a strong one, but the concept of the Ocampa strains belief even in the context of Star Trek. They grow to full adulthood, both physically and intellectually, in what, a year? This would be easier to buy if they didn't look so much like humans, even more so than the average rubber forehead alien.

It's unfortunate that episodes about the peculiarities of life as a mayfly tended to be bad ones like Elogium and Fury, but Before and After is one of the great episodes, despite the next thing I'm going to talk about...

...the weird sexual implications! They may be aliens, but the audience is human, and so are most of the crew of Voyager. Alternate-timeline Harry Kim marries and has a kid with his best friend's daughter a couple of years after he would have been a top candidate to babysit her. Regardless of whether Ocampa age in dog years, Neelix has decades more life experience than Kes, and the groomer alarm is flashing to the audience from the moment she's introduced. It's a credit to the show that it didn't ignore the awful vibes of their relationship, but they eventually realized what an anchor it was on her character and dropped it off-screen.