“Your daughter is not an extension of you. You have no jurisdiction over her. What she does can’t be morally wrong for you.”
– David Deutsch
From the archives: The original post was posted on 18th March 1997
“Hi Folks,
I’m stuck. Can anyone help?
I have a moral code which means I boycott a certain company with marketing practices that cause them to be responsible for the deaths of millions of babies each year.
This food company produces many of the products available on our supermarket shelves. For most things, we have managed to find other brand-name alternatives which taste the same. However, there is a certain chocolate drink which my daughter loves which has no similar alternative.
She wants to buy it.”
Then of course she must, and I assume she does.
“She cannot comprehend my complex bad feelings about this company. When I tried to explain, she thought I must be saying that the company kills babies to make the product!”
It’s also possible that she disagrees with you, and will continue to disagree with you. If, a few years from now, she joins some political campaign you disapprove of, over this or any other issue, there is no reason why this should make you feel bad about her, provided that you have become accustomed to respecting her autonomy.
Furthermore, unless you want to dig yourself into a hole whereby at some future date you become morally obliged, by your parental duties, actively to support a political campaign of hers that you disapprove of, it is very much in your interest to introduce your daughter as soon as possible to the principle of mutual respect for each other’s autonomy.
“So, is it really fair that I involve her in my boycott?”
Never mind fair, it isn’t right. You have no right to force everyone in town to join your boycott; and of all the people in town, your own child is the one whom it would be most wrong for you to force.
“If I buy the product for her I will be acting contrary to my own moral code… what’s the solution?”
I can’t believe that it’s really contrary to your moral code. First of all, a boycott has no moral force in itself, it is merely a tactic. Secondly, your daughter is not an extension of you. You have no jurisdiction over her. What she does can’t be morally wrong for you.
“Maybe I ought to start giving pocket money for when this sort of thing comes up. How do others handle pocket money? It’s always seemed a bit futile to me to have ‘pocket money’ when I buy my kids what they want, if it is affordable. My basic view is that they have the same right to any ‘leftover’ money as I do.”
If you really believe that, you must already have found yourself unable to deny her the product. If that is so, then your problem is only to feel good about this, which perhaps the arguments above might help you to do. Pocket money should be a matter of common preference of course, and it could be a rough and ready solution of a problem like this—just so long as you don’t end up saying “no you can’t have any, you’ve already used up your evil-product allowance for this week”.
But why can’t you just re-classify the situation in your mind? When you buy the product at her request, it is her money you are using. She is responsible. You are adhering to the boycott as scrupulously as ever.
Later the same day:
I had written:
“But why can’t you just re-classify the situation in your mind? When you buy the product at her request, it is her money you are using. She is responsible. You are adhering to the boycott as scrupulously as ever.”
The poster replied:
“Thank you. I really needed this reminder. So this is what a blind spot feels like
”
”See also:
- Are your children free to follow their own interests?
- Branded lazy parents for not coercing
- What do you mean by ‘having an agenda’ for your children? Are all wants for your children agendas?
David Deutsch, 1997, ‘What if a child wants to buy something the parent is boycotting for moral reasons?’, https://takingchildrenseriously.com/what-if-a-child-wants-to-buy-something-the-parent-is-boycotting-for-moral-reasons