In the Bible—Book of Job—one reads, “God will punish those sinners’ children in place of those sinners.” I’ve always been slightly fascinated by this idea. It speaks truth to me.

First off, I couldn’t care less what the Bible says God cares about. Then, I also don’t think much of people who argue, in political or historical terms, that some people bear extra responsibility because of what their ancestors did. But I am neither religious nor have I had anyone in my family killed in a gas chamber, so what do you expect?

Partly, I’m fascinated by the idea that children pay for the sins of their parents because it’s something we all observe. Parents have values, opinions, beliefs, and interests, and they try to pass on to their kids what they think is right. And they do. Parents also pass on ideas and values without being conscious of doing so. Kids of very family-focused parents are most likely to be family-focused. Kids of parents who value art, science, or politics are more likely to care about such things. And so on. Parents also have their mental fuckups, and they pass those along, too. Children of violent parents are much more likely to end up involved in criminal behavior. Think also of why stereotypical gender roles seem to change so slowly.

Now, it’s evident that whatever parents pass on to their kids gets diluted into a bunch of other ingredients that make up their children’s minds. At the end of the day, my sister is a flutist, and although I like to sing, nobody in my family before her gave the slightest fuck about music. She didn’t get into that stuff at home. But now, her three children do a lot of music and totally into it. I suppose this with my nephews is more an example of the apple not falling far from the tree than of God punishing anyone. But if something is true about transmitting a love of art, it’s also true about transmitting less uplifting things. But kids have agency.

Kids Have Agency

If you want, all of these are commonplaces—truisms we all believe. What I find amusing, though, is that it seems to me parents often try to pass on to their children values and ideas in a much more distilled form than they themselves hold them. The consequence? The kids end up embracing them much more than the parents ever intended. My own parents taught me the value of not getting stuck in a place just because I grew up there, of going out and seeing the world. And man, did I listen to them. I suspect that, at least at times, they wished I had adopted that particular value in a more temperate way. I guess people who teach kids that the most important thing is family and home might, at some point, be desperate to have a 35-year-old living in the basement, basically refusing to get a life of their own.

Now, the reason I’m writing this is because of a conversation around dinner with the being.

"Papa, do you need a fork?"
"No thanks."
"Papa, do you need a fork?"—now said louder, although she was barely two meters away.
"No thanks."
"Papa, do you need a fork?"—now screaming while smugly walking past me with a single fork for herself in hand.

I guess that being a ball-breaker is one of the values I’m passing on to her. And that I will pay for this. Hopefully, she will be funnier than I am.