The character 孩子 is formed by combining two separate characters, each with its own meaning and history. The first part, 孩, is itself a compound ideogram: its left side (子) pictorially represents a child, while the right side (亥) primarily provides a phonetic clue to its pronunciation (hái). The second character, 子, is a simple pictogram of an infant with outstretched arms. When placed together, 子 essentially reinforces and specifies the meaning of 孩, creating a single disyllabic word where the combined unit (孩子) conceptually represents "child" through this visual and semantic doubling of the infant imagery.