Easter and what generosity actually feels like.

Easter, in my household, has always belonged to my children rather than to me. Christmas has the weight of my own childhood. Easter is clean — it's theirs. I watch what they do with it.

My daughter, this Easter, wanted to give her chocolate to her brother. Not all of it. Some of it. She wanted to give him the ones she didn't like — there are always some she doesn't like — and also three of her favourites. She explained this to me carefully: the ones I don't like don't count, but the favourites do.

This is a sophisticated moral position. She had independently arrived at the idea that the value of giving is related to the cost to the giver — that giving what you don't want anyway is a lower form of generosity than giving something you actually value. She didn't have the vocabulary for this. She had the intuition. My daughter had independently arrived at the idea that the value of giving is related to the cost to the giver — that giving what you don't want anyway is a lower form of generosity than giving something you actually value. She didn't have the vocabulary for this. She had the intuition. At nine years old. Watching her arrive at this on her own, without anyone teaching it, was one of the more interesting parenting moments I've had.