Comments on Could a 13-year-old have morality to disagree with their family's unethical business practices, while those are the norm in their society?
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Could a 13-year-old have morality to disagree with their family's unethical business practices, while those are the norm in their society?
I am very bad at writing children characters in my stories, I always make them either too "dumb" or too developed. Currently I am in need of believable child +- 13, boy or girl.
Requirements:
My desired kid would be born into landed gentry, connected to nobility but no title bearer. He is privately tutored in economy and trade as his family operate warehouses and shipping company. The era is Industrial Revolution.
Question:
Could a child (+-13) develop high sense of morality to disagree with family's unethical business practices like slaves and working children, despite being it norm in society? Could this trait be inborn or must be developed by external forces, like private tutor who secretly enlightening him. (If this is unrealistic thinking for a child or too heavy to comprehend, do not be worry to tell me, I will find another solution)
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Setting aside your specific case, which I'm not qualified to comment on, I'll address your general question of a 13-year-old opposing family and the broader society's ethics. I have no particular expertise in history or sociology here; this is just what I've observed.
Sure, this happens quite frequently in other ways -- consider teenage religious rebellion, which is sometimes just "rebellion" but sometimes actual disagreement with the ideas the child was indoctrinated into. The more a set of values or ideas is presented as "just how we do things" and the less it's presented as a reasoned outcome, the more susceptible it is to challenge.
However, that questioning needs a seed, a reason for the teen to doubt. That seed could be exposure to the negative consequences of the value -- for example, seeing the harsh effects of slavery on someone who, as it turns out, is more human than animal after all. It can come in the form of reading or hearing new ideas from credible or loud sources -- the tutor you mention, influential friends, a prominent member of society who questions those values too, people the teen meets at summer camp (I realize your character doesn't have summer camp). It can come from reason, if the setting is right -- parents who teach a child to be analytical, scientifically rigorous, or curious can have that come back to them in unplanned ways. (This was my experience with religion as a pre-teen and teen.)
Without a seed of some sort, I would posit that going against one's culture as a teen would be vanishingly rare. We in the ultra-connected 21st century are used to encountering people and ideas very unlike ours, and even we can be slow to adjust the assumptions we take to be universally true. When your character's whole world is the local culture and whatever outside news filters through it, the character is going to need some sort of "hook" to start thinking differently.
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