Tonight with your 13 to 17 year old
The prompt
“Do you think it's fair that some people start out with way more advantages than others? How do you think about that?”
What to listen for
If they wrestle with the complexity, acknowledging luck, effort, and circumstance all matter, they're developing a grounded sense of justice that's genuinely their own, not just a slogan repeated from somewhere.
If they get frustrated or emotional, there may be a personal comparison underneath, a friend with more, or less, than them. Stay curious about the feeling rather than debating the politics of it.
A simple "it's not fair, but that's life" is a real answer for this age, it doesn't need to be resolved tonight.
What this tells you
How they reason through unequal starting points shows what fairness means to them beyond their own immediate situation.