Should you feel compelled to pay any heed to what your parents want in your adult choices? I used to say a definite ‘no’. My mother said I should do whatever I liked, and I vowed to ignore her. From a preference utilitarian perspective, I guess that virtually all aspects of a person’s lifestyle make much more difference to a given person than to their parents. If you feel a sense of obligation in return for your parents giving you life, why? You made no agreement, your parents took their chances in full knowledge you might grow up to be anyone.

However what if fewer parents do take their chances with a greater risk of children being less satisfactory to them? The biggest effect of taking your parents’ preferences into account more could be via increasing the perception that children are worth having to other parents. It may be a small effect, but the value of life is high.

I’m not sure how much of a difference expected agreeableness of childen makes to people’s choices to have them. At first it may seem negligible. Most people seem to like their children a lot regardless of what they do. However if a person were guaranteed that their child would grow up to be exactly the opposite of what they admire, I would be surprised if there were no effect, so I must expect some gradient. I haven’t seen any data on this except my mother’s (joking?) claim that she would’ve aborted me had she thought I would be an economist. I’m not about to give up economics, but I do visit sometimes, and I painted the new living room and helped with my grandmother’s gardening since getting here this time. See how great descendent are? I would be interested if anyone has better data.