On Being An Altruistic Parent

And not owning slaves

I.

Eighteenth-century Quakers thought that they knew what made people do evil: why they feasted while beggars slept outside their doors; why they insisted (sometimes violently) on unearned honor and power by virtue of their birth; why they murdered strangers for the glory of a king neither they nor the stranger had met. The problem was lack of simplicity.

“Simplicity” was a broad term, encompassing the rejection of all worldly pleasures and prestige. A simple man asked everyone to call him by his given name, never “Mr.” or “sir” and certainly not “Lord So-and-so” or “Your Grace.” He didn’t seek out the approval of others or positions of high status. He never drank, gambled, went to the theater, or read novels. He didn’t celebrate holidays: all days were equally holy. His furniture was sturdy, well-made, and without adornment. His house had no art on the walls. He gave himself long stretches of free time in which to do nothing but worship God.

The guy in the Quaker Oats logo is wearing 18th-century Quaker “plain dress” and thus practicing simplicity in clothing.

A simple man, Quakers reasoned, would be willing to treat all humanity as his equal. Because he didn’t want luxurious goods, he would gladly give all he had to the poor. And he would have no motivation to go to war: he had no honor to offend, no greed to slake.

Enter John Woolman.

John Woolman knew that slavery was one of the greatest evils plaguing the Earth. And yet, he observed, the practice of simplicity was doing almost nothing to keep his fellow Quakers from owning and trading in enslaved people—even growing wealthy owning their fellow children of God. This troubled him.

Eventually, he wrote Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes, one of the most radical Christian texts I have ever heard of.

Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes argues against “natural affection”: love for friends, for romantic partners, and most of all for one’s children. To be sure, Woolman said, natural affection is beautiful and good. We ought to love our children in a manner different from how we love other people’s children. Loving our friends and family is how we learn to love anyone.

But natural affection is also the root of great evil. A good Quaker—a simple man—would never insist on special treatment for himself. He wouldn’t throw out perfectly good clothes while other people go naked; he wouldn’t eat off silver while others starved; he wouldn’t demand respect that he refused to give to others.

But for his child, that’s a different matter. Selfishness feels shameful. It pricks the conscience. But a good father would sacrifice everything for his child, wouldn’t he? He can deny himself fashionable clothes, but who is he to deny his daughter a new bonnet? He can trust in God to provide for himself, but he wants safety and security for his children. He can live a life of humility for himself, but he wants his children to be powerful and respected. Natural affection feels like love, is love.

And so a good Quaker, a simple man—with diligence, with temperance, with thrift, with selflessness, with every virtue the Quakers tried to inculcate—ripped parents away from their children so the parents could be tortured and raped and in a few short years die on the Caribbean plantations. He worked long hours, prudently planning to pack a dozen more slaves on each ship; six would die, but the rest were pure profit. He took a quiet pride in his skill at his work and in his provision. His sons would inherit a thriving business; his daughters would be taken care of. The screams of the slaves were far away, and he would never hear them. He was at peace with God.

II.

I don’t own a car.¹ My son Vasili² has outgrown the bike trailer, so he has to walk or bike the mile to school under his own power.

One day, as he was dragging himself along the last block, he asked why we couldn’t just get an Uber to school every day, like we do when it rains. I told him that we would actually buy a car in that case,³ but we’d decided not to, because cars were expensive. He asked what we were spending money on instead of a car. I don’t believe in lying to children, so I said, “we could buy a car. But instead, before you were born, your daddy and your Lindsey and I all made a promise to give ten percent of our income to help those worse off than us, and if we owned a car we couldn’t do that.”

Vasili was outraged, of course, and quite rightly. He hadn’t made any promises, and yet here he was, giving up precious Minecraft time to walk half an hour to school. His parents were hurting him because of a decision he had no say in to help people he didn’t care about one bit.

I take Vasili’s interests into account, as you would expect. The trip to school is good exercise and a precious opportunity for focused one-on-one time with his parents. If he were persistently too tired to get himself to school, we’d figure something else out. But the benefit to my child isn’t why I don’t own a car. I don’t own a car because (as unfashionable as it is among effective altruists) I worry about climate change, and because I gave the money to the GiveWell All Grants Fund instead.

As a parent, I make choices like this all the time. Do I send Vasili to private school, or to the failing Oakland public schools that bore him and make him hate learning? Do we stay in the tiny, cramped house without a yard that has rent we can afford? When do I send Vasili to an expensive specialist, and when do I shrug and go “he’ll grow out of it”? Should we travel somewhere other than his grandparents’ house? Should we give him toys at times other than his birthday⁴ and Christmas? If he wants to learn martial arts, should we take him to lessons? Should we buy him the expensive Amy’s frozen food that (unlike my cooking) he actually reliably eats? Should I buy him front-row tickets to the Lion King musical because I want him to feel the same awe I felt the first time I saw the elephant puppet?

It’s not just about money, of course. My household is lacto vegetarian. Balanced lacto vegetarian diets are perfectly healthy for children—but what do I do when my child hasn’t heard of this “balance” thing and instead wants to live entirely on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cereal with milk, apples, and Ensure? What do I do if a friend or a grandparent gives him something with eggs in it? What do I do if he wants to order an eggy dessert at a restaurant?

I’m not going to say how I answered these questions, because I don’t care to invite policing of my parenting. Some I answered “yes,” some I answered “no,” all are provisional depending on circumstances. But I’m always asking them.

I trade off my own wellbeing against my child’s too. But it’s easier to rationalize that as being in his best interest. If, when Vasili was born, we had moved out of Oakland to somewhere with big yards and low rents, Vasili might have been better off, but then I’d be lonely and depressed. Vasili might prefer I always take him to the museum on weekends, but if I see adult friends or finish up blog posts, I’ll be happier and a better parent.

But uncaged chickens and vaccinated Africans are obviously not in Vasili’s interest. I’m an atheist; I don’t even have John Woolman’s defense that the best thing for my child is to teach him the ways of God. I am willing to deny Vasili things I could give him, because there’s something else that matters more.

I suppose, at this point, I can say “I don’t want to love my child less, I want to love other people more.” But resources—time, energy, thought, money—are scarce. On some cosmic level, I don’t love Vasili less because I won’t drive him to school. But, when he’s protesting the injustice of it and I kind of agree, it sure as fuck feels like I do. He gets less because strangers get more; what is that, if not weaker natural affection?

John Woolman, himself a parent, understands me. I don’t like giving up things I like, but I feel a certain lack of conflict about it. It’s quite different from the horrible, heart-wrenching temptation to take better care of the small, vulnerable person entrusted to my keeping—knowing that, in doing so, I would harm other small, vulnerable people, whom I will never meet, but who matter just as much.

1. Yes, I have considered the tradeoffs regarding how much time I would save if I had a car, and this is the right decision for my household right now.

2. Frequent readers may recall that I previously had a son named Viktor. Same kid; he just goes by his middle name now.

3. Vasili is confused by the idea that some people might own cars instead of just summoning them with their phones.

4. Actually half-birthday because he has a January birthday and I want the present holidays spaced six months apart.