Naima is, as she spends a good fifty percent of her life, tapping sick people. It's much less boring when she can bother her husband with every idle thought that pops into her head, though.
Hey Elie, just wondering, do we have any specific plans for Rahim's education? I'm not clear on when you're supposed to start teaching children things.
That makes sense.
I guess I think that - obviously we are going to try not to make the mistakes of our parents. And I appreciate that you think about this, and are watching out for it, and take that so seriously. But - we are also going to make different mistakes than our parents. Our circumstances are different, and we can't see every mistake coming before we've made it. But we can - think about the ways in which our lives are different, and try to avoid the worst potential pitfalls of the way in which we're raising these children, without actually having to make all of the mistakes we might have made.
The new mistake that I am most worried about making is - raising children who don't understand how to work, how to reach, how to accomplish what they set their minds to, either because they think they're too good for it or because they don't believe they can, and I want to go out of my way to try not to raise children who are helpless. And I also think that there are lots of mistakes I'm making that I can't see, and - if I'm not equipped to teach them something, or you're not equipped to teach them something, then I figure that having other adults in their lives gives them more people who they can look up to and learn from. They'll have to exercise judgement about which things they keep, of course, but it's easier to do that than to go around inventing everything from whole cloth, I think. So - that's why I want them to experience some of how other people live, and have mentors that aren't just us.
But I'm not overly attached to any specific way that might look, or any specific age we have to let them leave, if they want to. I suppose by sixteen or so I'd think it wouldn't be fair to force a child to stay, if they wanted to leave and had a reasonable plan to study under someone else. Waiting much longer than that seems like an unfairly late start, if it means they'll hit the point where they're ready to be adults, and then need to study for two more years. But - sorry. We don't need to figure this out now.
Well, she'll have long enough to start silently kicking herself.
Well, I probably am, too. I'm - sorry.
We really don't need to talk about it now, if you don't want to.
Let's talk about it tonight, when we're both in the same place? I love you.
Sure, that's fine. I love you too.
She'll make it alllmost an hour before checking whether that's a suggestion not to talk at all until tonight, or whether talking about unrelated stuff is fine...?
Oh, honestly nothing, it's just mildly uncomfortable not knowing whether it would be a bad idea to say so if there were.
He likes to hear what she's thinking about.
He's going to be sort of quiet, though.
Well, she'll probably end up being sort of quiet too, then, and only occasionally comment on things.
She's back late; the children are probably already in bed. She'll let the apprentices run off to their rooms, telepathically let Elie know she's home, and - not bring anything up until he does, this time.
Shrug. "It's okay. I was sort of barreling ahead. I think this is obviously really important to you, and - well, I want to try doing a better job listening this time."
" - yeah," she says, as if she's also scared, which she's not, really. "Uh, do you - want a hug?"
He would like that very much yes.
"I think we're just borrowing trouble, trying to decide what Rahim ought to be doing in ten years. We'll know so much more about raising children then. And he'll be able to tell us himself."
"And at the same time I think writing it off risks masking some real fundamental disagreement between us about – what children need, perhaps, or how it's acceptable to treat them."
He is going to try putting his head in her lap at this point.
"I am not sure there are any authoritative sources on that. Erastil, maybe, but I imagine you disagree with Him. I'd like to hear what you think anyway."
"Thinking might be too dignified a word for what I'm doing just now. When I imagine exposing our children to hardships we could spare them from because it might help them when they're grown, though, I feel despair. They can learn to obey and sacrifice and suffer when they're old enough to understand what suffering is. There will never be a shortage of petty tyranny. What's the use of all the power and all the riches in all the world, if we can't spare them that?"
"Well, I suppose exactly how I feel about this might depend on what counts as a hardship."
"...well, uh, at the risk of arguing again, I think that not having any hardship in one's life until the age of twenty is probably bad for you. Although it also sounds fairly impossible, at any level of resource expenditure, so maybe I shouldn't be as worried about that as I apparently am."
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