We may not like that a grown child dresses like a Goth or dyes their hair purple or has put on too much weight. How far should we go to persuade them to dress in J.Crew, cut the purple locks or go on a diet?
What if we supercharged that desire to persuade with a bribe of sorts, say, tie the change in appearance or habit to a financial gift? A reader posed that question to the NYT’s Ethicist, Kwame Anthony Appiah. Here’s what the reader wanted to know: Can We Ask Our Son to Go on Weight-Loss Drugs in Exchange for a House?
The question goes beyond the inadvisability of commenting on a child’s body size. It leads to the tricky issue of whether gifts to our kids should have strings attached. And in this case, a string that’s linked to an adult child’s behavior and smacks of coercion.
Here’s Appiah’s response, edited and condensed.:
- It’s not always wrong to attach conditions to a gift. Sometimes the conditions are intrinsic to what’s being given.
- It would not be problematic to tell a relative with an addiction problem that you’ll provide an apartment so long as the person maintains their sobriety. The rationale is that the addict’s choices around substances aren’t fully free. The condition is aimed at protecting autonomy, not constraining it.
- By contrast, the reader’s son is fully capable of judging the evidence and deciding what to do with his own body. His choice about seeking treatment may be misguided, but it’s his to make, and the condition is unrelated to the gift.
- This isn’t extortion; withholding a benefit isn’t the same as imposing a penalty. But it’s disrespectful. The implication is that the son can’t be trusted to make reasonable decisions about his own life and body without being bribed into them.
- Consider a gift where the condition is intrinsic to what’s being given: The parents could offer to defray the costs of treatment. This helps them give their son something without saying anything about how much they trust his judgment.
- He may still decline. If he does, the parents will have to make their peace with the fact that it’s his body and his life.
Photo: Maia Lemov
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