Suppose you had seven children.
All of them, having reached the age of maturity, were jobless and were encouraged to find a job.
Child one keeps applying for different jobs in the technology industry but nobody will accept them. However, they keep trying and trying. They are like Sisyphus. They also aren’t doing anything as they wait.
Child two makes themselves exclusive to doing odds and ends for a decent amount of money. While child one thinks jobs should be sought via the application process, child two is averse enough to this that the inconsistency of what they do day to day is intentional.
Child three applied an actual application for an “actual” job and found one. The catch? It’s an organized crime job. However, it’s not immoral even though it’s illegal. They’re the personal household assistant of the mob boss. They too get paid immensely.
Child four also applied an actual application for an “actual” job and found one. The catch? It’s not illegal but has ethical issues involved. They mastermind ways to monitor and deal with those considered national threats. They too get paid immensely.
Child five, too, applied an actual application for an “actual” job, but it’s something they’re utterly terrible at doing, skill-wise. They’re tasked with therapy but have so little skill it’s considered useless. Child five, despite this flaw, gets paid decently by the office building.
Child six applied for a job and was appointed into one that had the completely foreseeable result of causing many dozens of people to lose their own job. They maintain a scenery-modifying machine which caused and still threatens to cause many scenery workers to become like spare cogs wandering the streets in search of a purpose. Child six too gets paid well, despite also having a version of their job that undermines the importance of the profession itself.
Finally, child seven is a volunteer, one with no ethical or legal issues involved, no issues finding a job, and no limits whatsoever in what they can do for others, and they do it all for free. However, after a few months of doing it, they think “that’s enough for me” and they never do a deed again.
One day, you realize you are passing away and summon all seven children to your home. You have specific things, all of which only one child can inherit, and due to the nature of these things, it has to be the child whose deeds make them out to seem the worthiest, as it’s the only tiebreaker. Which child do you prioritize as being the best candidate for the one with the highest worth?
First, I get that you note “Child” 1 thru 7 to indicate offspring. Really, they’re adults though and I start my framing as such.
Adults are responsible for their decisions. Working gig jobs instead of a more traditional job, ethical issues, accepting jobs they aren’t suitable for or which have low/no compensation are all factors adults would have to consider.
The only person who seems to be obviously struggling despite decent planning and actioning (based on minimal descriptions provided) is child 1. Even that logic is tenuous depending on how long they’ve been attempting and failing in one industry while another is potentially a better fit for them that for some reason, ego or other, that they won’t consider. The rest are employed, with situation and compensation consciously accepted by each.
And I would also consider a human relationship element. If I have strong reason to believe giving all to one person would turn the other six against them in the form of lawsuits or violence, I might consider skipping inheritance altogether and give it to some charity. I suppose the amount of money and reason it can’t be split into multiple portions would also play a part in that decision.
Second from final thought, I do have a lot of siblings. Not quite seven but close. If our parents were to say, “hey, we only have enough money to give one person a meaningful inheritance, what should we do?”, I am confident nearly all of us would ask that they give it to the youngest who is still working through college and drowning in student debt. The rest of us have made our decisions on education and careers pursued, jobs accepted, lifestyle balanced with ability to support it. Not the spirit of your rigid scenario, but just pointing out another way of approaching the issue that was bricked out in the setup.
And final thought. Toss the rigid scenario aside and jobs/salary are not how I would hope to decide to divide assets among inheritors. I hope I have relationships with all my future offspring that go beyond simple sum of dollars.