If I had downvoted you it would have been because your reason not to read the essay seemed a poor one. However this assessment that it was a poor reason would

If I had downvoted you it would have been because your reason not to read the essay seemed a poor one. However this assessment that it was a poor reason would have been itself post hoc, since I have already discovered that it's a fairly good essay. In fact the quote about number of descendants doesn't represent the essay well and I'm not sure why your parent chose it. So it's more that you turn out to have made a bad decision, than that your reasoning was unsound.