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Children/family = least agency, while buying something = most agency? I must be misunderstanding something big time.

You can’t always control what your children or family do. You are in control of what you buy.

I have 3 kids and they are still young and I barely control how they behave :) It will be even more terrible later

You can (and indeed must) control a lot about whether family, especially children, make you happy.

Also many people don't seem to control what they buy.

The makes sense when you look at the responses themselves.

Children/family are mostly containing answers such as "My son visited me on Mother's Day.", which you can't really cause yourself.

Of course you can, you just have to cause it years in advance.