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July 23, 2010 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
36:17
1704 Children as Property

The relationship between coercion, authority and parenting.

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Hey everybody, Steph. Solocast!
Time, yes, it has been a while, I quite agree.
So, there's a question that's been floating around on the message board.
It's a very interesting question, I think, and I've touched on it in some ways, but I thought I would try and give it a bit more of a rigorous treatment this afternoon.
And the question is around force.
And children, you make your child do something, you force your child to do something, you will sometimes even initiate harm against your child for the sake of something better, some avoiding science, or you take some immunizations or whatever.
And it's a challenge, it's a challenging question.
Where do children sit inside the non-aggression principle?
Where do children sit inside UPB? And there are two extremes, which I think we can all acknowledge as extremes.
The first is the newborn infant, and the second is the 18 to 20-year-old adult.
And clearly, a newborn infant...
Does not really have any capacity to enter into a social contract or to process the consequences of actions or to defer gratification or anything like that.
I thought about the intelligence of an alert kitten and so there's really not much that can be said in terms of the social contract or ethics there.
And parents do things that babies don't like quite regularly.
Babies cry on average two to three hours A day.
And I don't know if that's when you last did that, but it was either during a big breakup or when you were navigating with your shins in a darkened room filled with lots of low-lying furniture.
But that's a lot of crying.
And I think we can all understand that a parent has to make decisions that the child isn't going to lie.
And there are times when the parent must shield the child from the consequences of his actions.
There are times when a parent ideally should, or there's some argument to be made that a parent should let the child accept the consequences of his actions, right?
So, if your child, if your toddler wants to run into traffic, then clearly you do not let the child, the toddler...
Experience the instructive consequences of being creamed by a Mack truck.
That clearly is not good.
And on the other hand, if your child is 14...
And has failed to study for an exam.
The argument could be made.
Well, you let the child study.
Like, you let the child have... The child has to take the exam.
The child can't. So do you say...
The child says, I need you to sign this note and let me call in sick because I didn't study.
Well... You don't get that as an adult, right?
I mean, you don't get to call in sick instead of paying your taxes as an adult or other things that are important.
And so, at the age of 14, should a child begin to experience the consequences of actions or inactions?
I think so.
I mean, I don't think that's the end of your job as a parent is to just let the consequences accrue.
I think that you need to figure out why the child made the decisions that resulted in not studying for an exam.
I think you need to figure that stuff out and maybe give them one Get out of jail free card, so to speak, but if the behavior is persistent, which of course I think if you really get to the root of the problem it won't be, but let's say, then I think that letting a child experience the consequences of actions is an essential life lesson because that is what happens in life.
So the question is, what is ethics and force around children?
Now, let's take an example, right?
So you are an anarchist single mom and you work as a waiter or something during the day and in the evening.
And you don't have a lot of money.
You don't have the money to send your kid to private school or to unschool or to homeschool because you've got to eat.
Well, what are you going to do? You have to send the kid to public school.
Maybe your kid hates public school.
Well, of course your kid hates public school if you've got any brains, right?
And yes, you're going to have to make that kid go to public school.
And it's a wretched situation.
And are you really going to force your kid to go to public school?
Well, the problem is, let's say your kid is six or seven, what are your options?
What are your options? You can't stay home with your kid however much you might want to.
Maybe there are no relatives that would homeschool, or maybe there's just no options, right?
We can all, I think, imagine a scenario wherein there aren't any options.
And maybe you could say, well, but you shouldn't have had the kid.
But the thing is that you had the kid, and you've got a six-year-old kid.
You're an anarchist or a libertarian.
You're very much against public schools.
You don't have the money for homeschooling or unschooling or private schooling.
And so what are you going to do? Well, you could try, I guess, having your kid...
Well, you see, it's actually illegal. Your kid's not allowed to stay home when they're six or seven, right?
So this is a And I think that's actually a fairly good idea.
But what are you going to do?
What are you going to do? You're going to send your kid to public school.
Are you forcing your child to go to public school?
Well, I suppose so in a way, right?
I mean, there are laws, of course, that compel kids to go to school, but I think it's fair to understand a six-year-old is not competent to stay home alone.
I know I did, and I was fairly sure I was not exactly competent to do it.
No, that wasn't too bad. But...
I have to force your kid to go to public school.
Is that the initiation of force?
Well, it's a tough call.
It is. It's a tough call.
It's not black and white. I really try to be precise around language and try to be rigorous around language and I try not to put...
Unrelated concepts into a big frappe called syllables and blend them all up together.
So when I think of the initiation of force, I think of murder and muggings and rapes and all kinds of ugly and unprovoked fisticuffs and teeth knocked out and broken noses and all that, right?
That's the initiation of force.
I can't put...
Making your child go to school in the same category.
Like, I just can't do it.
I know that there's reasons why.
But the problem with family and the, I mean, the benefit and the problem with family as a whole, right?
The reason why family is so challenging to examine philosophically is because family is a violation of freedom of association.
And, sorry, let me rephrase this.
It's not exactly a violation. Freedom of association is impossible in a family.
Freedom of association is impossible in a family.
So, what are you going to do?
Well, when freedom of association is impossible, then ethics kind of don't apply.
In many ways. Now, in some ways they apply even more, in that if freedom of association is not possible between your children and you, then you need to treat them extra, extra, extra well to make up for that lack of voluntarism.
But on the other hand, because freedom of association is impossible and independence on the part of children is impossible, six-year-olds can't go out and rent their own apartments and get their own jobs and arrange for their own health care and dentistry, right?
They can't do it. Not capable, not possible.
Not now and likely not ever.
And so, it is not a voluntary relationship on the part of the children, and it is not a voluntary relationship.
It's a voluntary decision to have children, but it's not a voluntary relationship after that on the part of the parents, and there is a dependence.
Look, we all understand that you and I are not morally obligated to feed starving children in India, unless we are parents of those same starving children in India.
But we understand that. We are not morally obligated to do that.
Nobody can use force against us if we don't feed starving children in India.
On the other hand, we do have a moral obligation to take care of our children or surrender them to someone who will because they are unable to take care.
Of themselves. Right?
So, I've used this example before, but if you haven't heard it, right?
So, if a guy is just sitting in his room starving himself to death because of X, Y, and Z thing, then he'll do that.
I'm not morally responsible for that.
But if the room that he's starving to death in is the basement I've locked him in, then I am responsible for that.
Because it's no longer a voluntary relationship on his part.
And so... I am now responsible because he cannot feed himself if he's locked in my basement.
So I am now responsible for feeding him because I am the only avenue through which sustenance can come through to him.
So, it's the same thing with kids, right?
Not to morally equate the two, but for children, it's their parents who are the only sources by which food and shelter and other resources can come to them.
They can't make their own doctor's appointments and drive themselves down to get checked up and inoculated and so on.
So, it's the parents of the soul, right?
So, I'm not responsible for feeding starving children in India, but I'm damn well responsible for feeding my daughter.
So, you understand, because it's not voluntary...
Because there's not a marriage of equals, then the ethics of equal and voluntary adult-to-adult relationships does not apply.
Does not apply.
So, for starving kids in India, A, I'm not responsible for creating them because I didn't have them, and B, I'm not responsible for feeding them.
Because I'm not their sole source of food, and in fact, I probably really shouldn't be, given that I'm not their parents.
So it's very different.
That situation is very different from the situation that occurs with kids, with your own kids, right?
So when we put together these aspects of involuntarism and dependence, then we end up with a different...
Moral relationship.
If I have chosen to enter into a relationship with someone, i.e.
had a baby, and that relationship remains entirely or largely dependent upon my actions for their survival, then I, in a sense, own that life.
I mean, a husband and wife, when they love each other very much, combine their pp's In magical cataclysms of joy, they have created a life, and creation has an aspect of ownership to it.
And because you have ownership for it, you are responsible for it.
So if you own a car and you drive it into someone, you can't say, it wasn't me, it was the car.
So take the car to court or sue the car.
No, because you own the car, therefore you're responsible for it.
And in the same way, there is ownership.
Where there is creation, there is ownership.
And so there is ownership. Now, there's diminishing ownership and raising to be independent and so on, but there is ownership over children in a way that there isn't ownership over adults.
You don't create other adults.
They're not dependent upon you for survival.
But you do create your child's life, and the child is dependent upon you for survival.
Therefore, there is a form of ownership over the child.
And where there is ownership, there's also custodianship, right?
So you can, if you want, you can go and key your own car, but you can't go and cut your own child, right?
Because there is custodianship.
There is a responsibility for the good treatment of the life that you have created.
And, of course, failing that, then the child has every right when he achieves adulthood to vamoose and be seen no more, if he so chooses.
And so there is ownership, there is responsibility for the life that you have created, but there is not ownership in the same way there's ownership of an inanimate object for the simple reason that it is not an inanimate object, it is a human being in the making.
And the goal of parenting is to raise your child to an adulthood of competency.
And so everything that you do that furthers...
That achievement of competency as an adult is good parenting and everything you do which hinders...
That is bad parenting.
And so if you let your child run into traffic and get creamed that you have not helped them to reach mature adulthood, and therefore that is bad parenting.
If you do not take care of your children's teeth, then they're going to end up with chronic health problems and ailments and perhaps speech problems and social awkwardness and bad breath.
And although this is not going to help them achieve competent adulthood, and therefore that is bad parenting.
And if you yell at them and break their spirits and beat them down and hit them and rape them, of course, that's messing up with their brains and further reducing their competency in achieving adult physical and mental health.
So I think we can all understand, I think, without a huge degree of argument, those basic principles.
And so, that which furthers your responsibility as a parent, right?
Because, see, the thing is, you own the childhood.
You certainly own the infancy of your child.
And anyone who doubts this should just try going into the stall in a public washroom and trying to wipe someone's ass and see how far you get relative to what you do with your own infant.
So, you own...
It's like this.
It's a rental. That's the closest, I think, analogy.
You don't own your child in perpetuity.
You borrow your child from the future, right?
So, you own your child when they're very young, but you don't own their adulthood.
You don't own their adulthood, and therefore, you can't pollute their adulthood.
So, think of a child...
As a car that you're releasing, right?
You own the car for a certain amount of time, or you have ownership over it, you have custodianship of it, but you don't own it outright, so you can't rent a car and go and sell it on eBay without breaking your contract.
You can't go and rent a car and then...
Steal parts from it, right?
Because you own it only for a certain amount of time.
And then the ownership reverts back to the person who has loaned you the car, or the company that has loaned you the car.
And so you own the childhood, but you only have custodianship over the childhood, but you do not own the adulthood.
And you have to, I mean, to use the word return is a bit ambiguous here, but you have to return the child, or you have to turn the child into its adulthood in good shape.
Right? So if you used to rent a lot of cars for business, and let's go through the same thing, right?
So they walk around the car, you walk around the car, and they notice any dings and this and that, and you have to sort of sign off.
So if you return the car with dings, they will charge you for it because you signed off that they weren't there, right?
So... Normal wear and tear on the car is expected, right?
So you're not expected to return it with the same mileage that you took it out with, because what would the point of that be?
So yeah, they're going to expect that you're going to use some oil and not be charged to fill it.
There's going to be some wear and tear on the car.
You're not going to be responsible for wear and tear in the normal course of using the car.
So there is some wear and tear, just as there is friction, conflict, and disagreements in familial relations.
But Your goal is to...
You are a custodian. You are delivering the child to his adulthood, to her adulthood.
And you do not own that adulthood because the child then owns...
I just stick with the male.
So the child owns himself in adulthood.
So you don't own the child in adulthood.
The child owns himself when he becomes an adult.
And it's your job to deliver the child to adulthood uninjured, in the same way that it's your responsibility to return a car that you've loaned undinged, unbroken, with the same number of headlights and seat covers as when you borrowed it.
And we all understand that, right?
So if I borrow my neighbor's lawnmower, then he understands there's going to be wear and tear, but he also understands that I'm not to return it, a smoking wreckage, right, with blades hanging off and the oil spilled all over it and currently on fire, right, that that would not be good.
So, yeah, no more wear and tear.
Conflict is natural. Disagreements are natural.
Some parenting decisions that are bad are natural.
And, um... But you don't own the adulthood of your child, and it is your responsibility to deliver that child to his or her adulthood in good shape.
Hopefully in great shape, but certainly in good shape.
And if you deliver that child in bad shape, then you have not done your job very well as a parent.
So I hope that makes sense as a framework.
I'm not saying this doesn't answer every conceivable question to do with parenting, because I don't think anybody can.
But you do have ownership over your child, because they certainly don't have self-ownership.
I mean, a baby's arms and leg movements are largely random.
They can't lift up their own heads, and they can't clean themselves, can't feed themselves.
So you have ownership over them.
And that ownership diminishes, right?
And of course, your purpose is to diminish that ownership over time.
And it's a gray scale, right?
It's not black and white.
I mean, legally, I guess in some sort of way, there has to be 18 or 21 or whatever.
That is the age in which self-ownership, 100% self-ownership is assumed with some caveats, right?
You can still co-sign in a free society to be able to co-sign a lease for your kid or whatever.
But you can think of yourself like a courier, right?
As a courier, your goal is to deliver a package in good condition.
And there may be some creases and folds in the...
You know, if you're delivering a pair of slacks, they may be a little wrinkled when they arrive, but they should not be torn and gasoline-soaked and so on.
And so, as a parent, your job is to take ownership of your child when they're born, as you do, and to deliver that child to adulthood in good shape.
Because you don't own that child's adulthood, clearly, right?
And you do own the baby.
You have to. I mean, that's why baby theft is, someone stole my baby, dingo, stole my baby.
That's why that is a bad thing, because the baby is yours, right?
Which is why you can leave the hospital with the baby, but not the MRI. Because you've created the baby, you own the baby, and therefore you have custodianship over it.
Now, as I think we can all understand, the delicacy with parenting and the ethics of parenting is all around the conflict between two opposing entities.
They're not always opposing, but they sometimes are.
Two opposing states of mind.
The first is parental necessity, and the second is the desires of the child.
I think that wherever parental necessity and the desires of the child go hand in hand, there's no conflict.
And wherever the desires of the child do not conflict with parental necessity, and by that I include the health of the child under parental necessity, where the desires of the child do not impact or inflict parental necessity, then there's no conflict.
The conflict occurs when parental necessity conflicts with the desires of the child.
So parental necessity...
It's changing your child's diaper, right?
So if you leave your child in the diaper too long, as I'm sure you know, diaper rash, and the child's very uncomfortable and miserable and in pain, and it can take quite some time to heal.
Izzy's only had it once, and it was because she pooped at night.
The only one time she's done that, actually.
But it's miserable and it's unpleasant.
Now, of course, the child does not want to get her diaper changed.
That's what gender is for this one.
The child doesn't want to get her diaper changed.
Of course. I mean, what kind of fun is that, right?
So, the parent knows that it's necessary to change the child's diaper.
Also knows that the infant cannot have that necessity explained to her, and so you pick your child up.
And you carry her sometimes under great protest to the change table.
And on very rare occasions, if she's thrashing around and kicking while you're changing, you have to pin her down, because otherwise she can kick herself right off the table and fall, which would be very bad.
And she can also, of course, injure the parent, which is not good as well.
If they're the kick, you're leaning down, kick to the eyeball, that kind of stuff, right?
Babies can be surprisingly strong.
So, that's a parental necessity.
You have to have your diaper changed versus a child's.
I like baths myself.
I liked them as a kid. Izzy, fortunately, likes her bath time.
She loves the water. She loves bath time.
So that's not such a big problem.
But, of course, there are times when...
It is a problem when the baby does not want to have a bath, but the baby has been two days or three days without a bath.
He's had sunscreen and bug spray and all of these kinds of wonderful things poured over the baby, so you've got to bake them.
Anyway, I think we all get this, right?
We all understand these necessities.
I once had to have a tooth filed down.
Fangs were coming in, you know.
And Christina was working, and I had to have Izzy on my lap while this was occurring.
And this was not fun.
But what can you do?
This is life without extended family.
Anyway. So, a parental necessity, which includes the health of the child and the child's desires.
Parental necessity trumps the desires of the child.
I mean, clearly this trumps the desires of the child.
We are assuming that the parental necessity is just, right?
The necessity is not for dominance over the child, right?
That would not be just.
For physical mastery of the child, it's not just, right?
So... We have to assume that necessity is actually necessary, not just something the parent makes up.
I mean, I was at a play center the other day with this, and there was a boy who...
Was at the top of a slide and was throwing a little light plastic ball down the slide.
And there were no kids on the slide. There was nobody around.
But she...
I don't think it was wise.
But she decided to take a stand, right?
So she decided to say, do not throw the ball down the slide.
Although the ball was very light, couldn't injure anyone.
There was nobody on the slide. It was, you know...
And every parent has these impulses, right?
Like, your kid's doing something that can be inconvenient for you, that can be problematic for you, right?
Like, so, your kid wants to sip from a juice cup, and you're fairly sure they're going to spill it, which means a clean-up, and so part of you wants to not have the kid do that, and the other part of you is like, eh, you know, or your kid wants to go into the pool, and you've got to give them sunscreen, and then you've got to change them, and it's a big hassle, so part of you says, ugh, later, or whatever, right?
And you have to weigh that, and you have to protect your own desire to have fun with your kid as well, right?
That's a very important thing. If you're forever surrendering to everything the kid wants against your own wishes, you can end up with less enjoyment.
So you have to fiercely guard.
The joy that you have in every relationship, I think, but particularly in a relationship with a young kid where the negotiation is not much of a...
I mean, we're starting to negotiate, but...
So anyway, so back to the mom.
She took a stand, right? She said, don't throw that down, as kids want to do.
Why not? My mom was kind of stuck.
Why not? It could hit someone.
Kid looks down, incredulously.
What do you mean? There's nobody there.
Nobody there. How could it hit someone?
And so the mom could have said, you know what?
You're right. I'm sorry.
It's not a very good rule.
Go for it. In fact, I'll catch at the bottom and throw it up.
That way, at least you're engaging with the kid and you know that there's not going to hit anyone else on the slide with the ball.
Or, you know, if she knew that it was a rule, she'd said, I'm sorry, I, you know, I know it doesn't make any sense particularly, but it's a rule and we, you know, we're here, we have to stick by the rules and so on.
Otherwise, they'll kick us out and we won't come back.
But no, she's like, she stuck it.
So the kid's like, no. And you can see the kid's face.
It's like, no, I don't know. Why?
What's the problem? What's the real problem here?
Or is this just an exercise of power because you feel so vaguely uncomfortable with what I'm doing and you haven't thought it through?
But no, she's like, now we need to have...
He said, no. And he threw another ball down.
She's like, now you need to come down.
We need to have a little talk.
I'm going to count to three. And the kid just ran off.
And it's like, why would you take a stand on something like that?
Why would you take a stand on that?
And I understand the why.
The why is that you just have an impulse like that's bad and you just act on that impulse without thinking it through.
Is it really bad? And it's very important as a parent.
You've got to be really, really slow to take a stand.
You've got to be really, really slow to set yourself up in opposition to your kid because they're going to have a million a month sensible questions as to why your stand is fair, rational, just, in consistency with all your other stands and not arbitrary and not subjective and not a mere exercise of power.
The kids are very sensitive to that and you're going to get all these questions and you better have some good answers.
Otherwise, it's going to turn into this kind of silly thing.
So eventually, the kid just said to the mom, I'm sorry, mom.
And she said, okay. Right?
And you could tell here, he was just saying, I'm sorry, because that's the magic spell that makes mommy go away.
And then the moment she turned around, I'm like, it's her own balls.
And now you understand, right? It's the same thing.
And it's just like, why would you take a stand on that?
Why? I mean, take a stand on, you know, with Izzy, we take a stand on, you don't go walking, wandering around parking lots, right?
Because... Lots of cars around.
I'll take a stand on that, and I'll go to the wall for that.
But I'm not going to go to the wall for her throwing balls down a slide.
I'm just not going to. Because I don't want to whittle down her respect for the wisdom of my...
Absolutes. If she becomes skeptical about why I'm making decisions and restricting her behavior, then it's just a constant battle.
And I just don't want that.
I want to really fiercely guard my enjoyment with my daughter, which means no arbitrary infliction of standards.
Or if I find myself doing it, then you just back down.
You just back down.
And you say, I'm sorry.
It's not that big a deal.
I made a mistake. Go for it.
I apologize. That does not harm my credibility.
In fact, I think it only enhances it.
Oh! We'll find out.
We'll find out in time. So, just parental necessity, which is...
The necessity for a parent to provide for the child, which means to work or have some means of income, says Steph, working out and chatting at the gym.
So that's parental necessity.
The parents need for some sort of sleep.
The parents need to go to the washroom.
The parents need to eat.
I mean, this thing will sound silly, but it's a challenge, right?
I mean, if Izzy wants to go out, I've got to find my sunglasses.
Because otherwise I'm not enjoying my time out.
It's too bright. I'm a form of mole-dwelling bat cave, blind fish.
And so I finally said, oh, I've got to find my glasses.
Parental necessity, Charles, is out of go right now.
Well, she's got to wait.
That's my parental necessity.
I mean, if I can't find the Marjo's Go and whatever, I'd generally like to at least look for a minute or two.
She doesn't want to go. She wants to go someplace, but she has to go into the car seat.
She doesn't want to go into the car seat. She can't go.
She wants to go out in the blazing hot sun.
She needs sunscreen because, you know, I'm pretty damn white.
If she doesn't want sunscreen, she can't go out.
If she wants to go out without sunscreen, there's a conflict.
But, you see, I don't own the future health of her skin.
I don't own her wrinkles and propensity for skin cancer when she's 70 or 60 or 50.
I don't own her adult self, so I have to protect that adult self in the same way that I don't own the rental car, and so I don't get to wreck it.
Because it's returning to its rightful owner.
And, of course, as a child, her body is going to be delivered to her adult self where she takes self-ownership.
I'm only a custodian of that.
And so I have to take very good care of it so that I can deliver it to her adult self for self-ownership purposes in good shape.
Healthy and inoculated and strong and well-fed and exercised and all that kind of stuff.
So, that's the way that works.
Now, it is diminishing, and there's no particularly clear line that you can say here, there, there's an absolute, and here's the line that gets drawn.
This is a negotiation. And some of it is UPB and some of it is APA. If you diminish your child's capacity for independence to some degree, right?
That can certainly happen, right?
Izzy is the one who tells me when she's ready to do something, like the first time she's ready to go down a slide, she's like, don't help.
Don't help. And she pushes my hand away and she goes down the slide.
And I, you know, my stomach does 19 kinds of flips.
And so, but if I were to not allow that, even though she thought she was capable of it, that's not the same as, right?
If I help her down a slide when she doesn't really want me to help, that's not the same as mugging someone or stabbing someone or killing someone.
I mean, raping. You understand, right?
This is just not the same category.
It's not ideal, but...
And it does communicate certain things about my trust and respect and all for her decision-making and so on.
But it's not the same.
You just can't use coercion.
You can't use coercion.
So to go back to the original example, if the parent has to work, the waitress, right, she has to work, and the only place she can put her kid is in public school because the government's taking the money anyway, Or even a completely free society.
If she's dead broke and the only place she can put her kid is in a school and the kid doesn't want to go to school, well, the kid has to go to school.
Because you don't own the child's future body.
You have to deliver it in good shape.
And you can't leave the child alone because that's putting the child at risk, right?
Turn on the elements, stick forks in the plugs, whatever, right?
Fall down the stairs. You can't leave the child alone because dad is taking an unacceptable risk.
Right? Like, you can't leave the child alone in the same way that you can't lend your rented car to a guy who's completely drunk.
Right? Because it's unacceptable.
He might be fine, but it's an unacceptable level of risk.
And, of course, the difference is that when you rent a car, if you trash it, the negatives accrue to you.
You have to pay for the new car, for the repairs, but Isabella will have to pay for that which I don't want to protect her.
She will have to pay. If I took her out for hours, she got sunburned out of hell.
And that raised her chances of skin cancer later in life.
I'm not the one getting skin cancer.
She is. So, she's the one who's going to have to pay for what I have not protected her from.
And that, of course, is completely unjust, right?
So, I just have to take care of her.
So, the mom puts the kid in.
And maybe the kid goes kicking and screaming.
And maybe the kid has to be kept in the classroom in some manner.
And, well... It's terrible.
It's a bad situation. It's far from ideal.
But the reality is that there are times where parental necessity is going to conflict with the desires of the child.
Now, of course, the parent should attempt to adjust that necessity.
Maybe find some place where the child can go that's less difficult or traumatic.
Find a better school.
Move to a better neighborhood.
Move to a different place. Maybe the mom could take half the shift and become roommates in a house rather than have a place on their own so she could homeschool.
These are options. But the reality is that no matter what scenarios you come up with, there are going to be times Where parental necessity, just parental necessity, is going to collide with child's desires,
right? So, let's say that the parent is promised a vacation to a kid, parent loses job, or parent's bank goes bankrupt, whatever, right?
Huge loss in the stock market or something.
And then the parent cannot afford said vacation.
Well, parental necessity is to be financially responsible.
A child wants to go on vacation.
Parent can't afford it. And so, guess what?
No vacation.
And in this way, right?
I mean, it is sort of a continuum, right?
So, why am I at the gym?
Is it because I really enjoy this?
No, I don't really enjoy it.
It's not that much fun.
If I get the benefits of working out without having to spend the time and grunting my way through this nonsense, then I would.
But the reality is that I don't own my future self in a sense, right?
So I have to deliver my 50-year-old body to my 50-year-old self in pretty good shape.
I'm a custodian of that as I get older.
I have to deliver my 80-year-old body to my 80-year-old self.
I'm borrowing myself from the future in the same way that I'm borrowing Isabella from her future.
And so there's a certain amount of responsibility and a deferral of gratification that you just have to suck it up and deal with.
And this is true as an adult, right?
So in showing this behavior with Isabella, I'm hoping that she's going to internalize it with herself and have the necessary discipline to do stuff even when it's tough or negative or difficult or problematic.
By teaching her that deferral of gratification is a good thing within reason, then not acceding to a child's request is showing them that there are times when you have to do things you don't want to do and maybe you don't even understand why at the time.
I don't know all the reasons why I'm exercising.
I heard it's good for me, and it seems to be.
So I'll keep doing it.
So I hope that these principles help, to some degree, at least clarify my thoughts about this complex and interesting issue.
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