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Chapter 1 12 asks, in light of its relevance to real educational practices, whether there are arguments in favour of or against certain forms of theorising. Again, it comes to light that certain forms of theorising (i.e. ideal theorising) are prone to ignore questions about fragility and luck, and as such contribute to a focus on ‘effort’. The third question discusses a ‘real’ educational practice, namely that of parents, to show that part of the fragility of aiming for a flourishing life is due to the fact that child-rearing can be described as taking an existential risk. 45 This existential risk arises, on the one hand, from the fact that the child is always free to not do what their parents intend in raising them, and on the other, from the fact that whether a child becomes a flourishing adult or not is to an important extent up to luck. All of the theories on education for flourishing analysed in this dissertation pay more attention to formal education (schooling) than to parents, although all of the theories explicitly state that what they argue applies to parents as well. Because parents are arguably the most important, or in any case the primary ‘educators’ of children, and because the fragility of the real educational practice of parents is more visible or more easily recognised/acknowledged than in formal education, I have chosen in this dissertation to focus on the practice of parenthood. 46 If parents should aim for a flourishing life for their children, it is important to address (also in theory) how ‘risky’ this endeavour is. The fourth question takes this one step further by not only discussing the practice of parenthood, but asking what it means for parents when philosophers of education argue that parents should aim for the flourishing life of their children. If the effort-side is central to the theories posited by these philosophers of education, what does that imply for the complex and fragile practice of parents who aim for a flourishing life for their children? I show that this can be problematic for child-rearing practices, as it increases parents’ expectations of themselves, and in turn of their children. A second implication of the fourth question is that by writing about flourishing as a desirable aim of education, theorists make normative claims about what parents ought to do. Even though educational philosophy is seldom addressed directly at parents, theorists ought to realise that their theories might be translated into policy, or teaching or parenting methods, which parents might come to read as advice on how they should aim for their children’s flourishing lives. If there is not enough attention to fragility in theory, this might have undesirable consequences in terms on what subsequent, derivative texts ‘impose’ on parents. I will return to this in the conclusion (CH6), in which I draw up the results of the questions addressed in this dissertation 45 ‘Parents’ should be read throughout this dissertation as ‘parents as well as other main caretakers in the role of parents’. 46 Here I would have preferred to use the word opvoeders instead of ‘educators’; see section 1.4 of this introduction.