The "I did it all for my daughter" fallacy.

yo what's up all of us are familiar with
the extent to which we've been socially conditioned but parenting by the offer of various forms of punishments and rewards as we grow up and by exposure to media such as television and movies but as we mature it's easy to be aware of the effect of prohibitions of what it is we fear to do what we've been told that we should be afraid to do that's relatively easy and some behaviors instead are solicited from us but positive reward by the expectation that these opinions these beliefs will be rewarded will be approved of by parental figures by society at large and people can build up quite a burden of unexamined beliefs of values they've never really challenged or thought through the effects of or utility of in this way from the social conditioning and I do think that one of the joys of middle age is that we encounter challenge examine and change these views and we changes characters ourselves Hollywood movies tend to celebrate the change in character you have in your teenage years but there are some changes in character that come with real maturity much later in life it would be very easy for me to repeat the sort of nonsensical myth that we live only for our own children this is one of these views that's solicited from people and rewarded but I think very few people pause to really think through what the implications of this would be I just paused to mention de Grasse dimension I am happy that I'm now in contact with so many vegan parents before I had a youtube channel when I merely had a blog the main reason for me to create that vlog was to get in touch with other vegan parents vegans who had kids of any kind and I was sending up tons of messages to the other bloggers you know most of them were like food blocks say oh hey you know are you a vegan parents I'm if he can parent to kind of thing and trying to get a group started and what have you those days are behind me now but I'm fundamentally very glad that there are so many vegan parents talking to me on patreon getting my content either as videos or as podcasts or what have you that's wonderful for me that's really a niche I've always been seeking and obviously the responsibilities of parenthood bring with them a very different perspective on the world from what you find from single or childless people at any age whether they're you know teenagers middle-aged what-have-you I appreciate the gravity of that worldview that comes with having and raising kids and you know the different way of thinking about the future earlier this year I did the paperwork to join the army the Canadian military huge decision in my life huge sacrifice in many ways and wasn't hypothetical I actually did it I signed up and I went through the testing procedure and there are reflections about that on this channel uh none terribly profound if I were to say I did this for my daughter that would be a kind of corny stereotyped trope such as everyone's used to hearing on TV and in movies oh I did it all for my kids I did this all because I love my daughter so much and that everything in my life I am living for my daughter etc but if you really pause to think about it that's a terrible thing to say it would be terrible to turn to your child one day in the future and say I joined the army because of you it would be a terrible thing to tell your child I could have been a scholar I could have been intellectual I could have been humanitarian work there all these other things I want to do in my life but for you because of you I joined the army terrible now apart from being terrible is it true or untrue really I mean I think even in a situation as extreme as joining the army I think actually if you pause and think about it deeply in your own life it's untrue there's a whole constellation of considerations that go into making decision like that including what wars are currently ongoing a hobby to me there's there's a big difference between the Vietnam War and the current wars that are being fought in Syria Iraq you know they've accomplished me in Ukraine and Russia you know to me there are real horror moral ethical questions that go into asking are you gonna fight this war are you gonna fight the wars that seem likely in the next five years you know we can't predict everything but all right hard decisions nothing to do with my daughter my daughter didn't decide that so on the one hand it's sort of morally odious on the other hand I really question in every case to what extent that is true obviously you know some decisions you make are purely for your kids why did I go to Germany in December I went to Germany to visit my daughter it was a hundred percent of in that case sure of course there are some decisions I make totally and purely for my daughter but point out it's often worthwhile to contrast the gender binary in these problems because it reveals a more subtle hypocrisy nobody thinks it's insulting for me to say that what I'm doing in my life in my career right now is entirely a sacrifice for my daughters for my daughter as if lwendo nobody thinks that but if we turn it around if I were to say the same things about my wife now my ex-wife it would actually be quite insulting to say my wife live is only for my daughter that she does these things only for my daughter hold on why would you say that about my ex-wife my ex-wife is a real intellectual she's got a child but she also makes decisions and does things and has ambitions for reasons of scholarship career you know to write a book to publish something meaningful to make the world a better place my wife does meaningful things for meaningful reasons legally we're still not divorced so legally she still is my wife by the way I misspoke fur doesn't matter wife ex-wife we could use it either term in this context you know in some ways if somebody said oh to my ex-wife oh but of course you're you you just do all this for your daughter this is all you be rather insulting no no the point would be to insist she's a parent but she also has serious moral concerns political concerns personal ambitions you know research ambitions etc she's a person of substance in the world and yet for a man it's become this corny Hollywood trope to say oh it's all it's all because I love my kids it's all for my dog I only did this from against I'm only alive for my kids I'm only living for my kids I'm devoted to my kids okay I think it's worth challenging I think it's worth thinking clearly about because at the end of the day what you're doing in doing something for your kids is your abdicating responsibility for it you're saying that Who I am as a parent deletes Who I am as a human being and some people may feel that way you may really feel like your potential as an individual has been snuffed out by having kids you may feel that you didn't get to be who you wanted to be or you don't get to be yourself who you really because your parents you may feel that way you can talk about that feeling but this idea that having a kid is a mission that is the reason why you're alive and that it explains these are the decisions in a subtle way I think it is kind of sick and distorting and it's worthwhile thinking about what position of what's the kid into this was for you kid this is because of you kid that's that's not a burden you want to put on the next generation now to me this raises somewhat broader question of the way in which Hollywood movies and similar media shape our expectations of life on Earth I am NOT like any character you've ever seen in a movie or a TV show and that's not a boast that doesn't mean I'm a good person or a great person or even an interesting person it just means that in general they don't make movies about people like me I'm the sort of guy who went to learn Pali in Laos and Cambodia Pali is an obscure language I'm the sort of guy who went to learn Kree in Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is an obscure place and Cree is an obscure language the things that motivated me to do that the combination of humanitarian and research concerns they are just not things that show up in a Hollywood movie okay so when we set our minds to this task of challenging the preconceptions that are inculcated into us and when we apply them other people when we meet other people you know don't ever say to me oh you know but eyes'll you're you're living for your daughter you're doing this for your daughter this is made worthwhile - to give your daughter you can ask me that as a question you can ask me you know did you join the army for your daughter I'm not offended by the question but really if you think of because I have an answer I have an answer for that question it might not be the answer you're expecting right but if you tell it to me as a fact I do think that's offensive and the only reason why I'm not in the army right now is the incompetence of the Canadian bureaucracy and back when I was in Toronto years and years ago I heard about guys who tried to join the Canadian Army and the bureaucracy was so incompetent that they ended up joining the American army instead I guess they have you know relatives in the u.s. they have some connection by blood technically I don't know that's possible for different types of people you know if you're a Canadian citizen how you join the user I've never looked into it but I mean I never thought I would consider that option but at the end of that perience i realized boy if i actually want to join an army i would have to do exactly that i have to join the u.s. army who in their right mind would tell a child your father went off to Afghanistan to kill or be killed for you I mean you know even for a child born and raised in Afghanistan that's a really troubling message but for a kid in Canada or France or Germany to tell them your father went to put bullets into human beings for you I don't like where that's coming from I don't like where it's going now if you tell your kid your father went because he really thought there was an important difference between democracy and theocracy your father went because even though he had a background in history and books even though he was a sceptic about war even though he'd studied some of the worst disasters in the history of warfare atrocities wars that ended badly even humanitarian interventions that were disasters even though he done all that study he knows the bottom line is life on Earth is not an academic debating Club and with some groups like Isis problem is not going to be resolved by sitting down at a boardroom table and having a debate some problems some issues some questions in the history of the world do get resolved by brute force whether or not you or anyone else in an academic debating room think that brute force is justified that's what's gonna answer that question so much you could say right now as it happens I didn't go into the service as stated but the whole puzzle of just outlined for how you would justify to a child that your father has joined the army to go kill other human beings how much harder is it to justify if that father gets killed if that father comes home in a casket my terrible thing to tell a child we did this for you so look I'm recording this it's a somewhat delayed reply to a comment I got from one of my fans in patreon where he made statements like this like well you know you say this and that about your life but really you're living for your daughter and you're doing all this for your daughter and I said look don't tell me that I'm not a character out of some movie I'm not and you know that's just because they don't make movies about people like me some people are you can meet some people who kind of remind you of a character from a movie you know fiction is made to resemble reality right I'm not on an ego trip about it but you know do not put corny Hollywood sentiments onto me and expect me to wear it as a hat that's not who I am that's not what I'm about I'm being really real with you guys I'm being really honest and one day I hope my own daughter can see these videos and know what kind of a man I was but I'm not trying to be anyone else not for her not for you so when I have the honesty to tell you how terrible my life is how terrible the decisions I'm making are what the stakes are what the consequences are don't ignore that don't flush that aside and disregard that in order to evoke some trope familiar from all atwood movie that's not who I am