"I'm not trying to dodge the question, Naima, I swear, but when I ask myself how much hardship's involved in an ordinary childhood I only have my own to go by." 

She frowns. "Well, that does admittedly seem like a poor benchmark."

"Gods. I don't think you'd ask me to beat them for not obeying us quickly enough or forbid them from talking or send them off to some horrible school when they're seven, but – 

– Ordinary parents strike their children and tell them not to speak unless spoken to, and they give them masters. Maybe if I knew more ordinary children I'd be able to accept those things. As it is, despotism doesn't look more appealing to me for being watered down. I don't want any part in it. I don't care if they fall out of trees or find themselves crossed in love – the world can be the architect of their misfortunes – but I just can't be. I couldn't bear it if in twenty years he thinks of me the way I think of my own father."

She pets his hair for a while and sighs.

"I am not actually sure that we disagree on anything? I mean - I'm sure that we disagree on some particulars, but I'm not sure that our core concerns here are fundamentally at odds with one another. I don't think it's very important to strike children or tell them not to speak unless spoken to. I don't think I fully understand how you're using the word 'master', and will set that aside for the moment. Of course there are things that I'll want to forbid them from doing or require them to do, for the sake of safety or their future well-being or occasionally even politeness, but I don't think the things I'm picturing are - very similar to the things that you're picturing. Or maybe they are, I don't know, but - since I think you agree that it is sometimes necessary to overrule toddlers, I think we can discuss individual cases as they come up."

"The important thing to me is that they know how to take care of themselves. That they feel equipped to solve their own problems, and have the skills that they need to do so successfully. And - I think that requires leaving them with problems to solve, and not swooping in and giving them everything they want, even when we can. Which isn't really at all rooted in trying to fix the deficiencies of my childhood, it's - sort of the opposite? There were a lot of things I really didn't like about my childhood, and that I don't want to make my children deal with. But it certainly left me equipped to solve my own problems - with a shove in the right direction, anyway - and I don't want to change things in such a direction that my children aren't. I don't want to rob them of the chance to grapple with things that are real and useful and in only their hands, or to develop the skills and the strength of character that can only be developed that way, and I'm worried that being an eighth circle caster and richer than kings might make that a very easy trap to fall into."

"I'm worried we're going in circles. I – 

I suppose it's far too late in this conversation to try not to sound pitiful. Will you forgive me if dig myself in a little further?"

"Of course."

"In that case, I think there's a great deal of disagreement on what sorts of problems a child ought to be equipped to solve. I don't want to be purely reactive about this – I agree that our children should be able to support themselves. I want them to be the kinds of people who believe that no secret of the universe is too difficult for them, and that no kind of useful work is beyond them, or below them. All that matters a great deal to me. 

And there's this word in Chelish. Babyish. It means just what you'd think, and it's used for everything. Crying out. Complaining. Objecting when someone cheats you. Asking a question about something you didn't understand. Asking for help – anything, really. Schoolwork, a broken arm, your sick baby, it doesn't matter. Self-sufficiency is an unspoken tenet of Asmodeanism: needing other people is shameful, showing that you need them is absolutely beneath contempt. I don't want to say I'm concerned we'll raise them to believe this, so much as explain why it's painful for me to make their lives more difficult when I could make them easier." 

" - oh."

"I was wrong before, I am also reacting to how I was raised. My parents wanted me to be able to solve problems and do useful work, but they did not imagine getting along without other people as something that it might be necessary or desirable - for girls, especially, but maybe to some extent for everyone."

Slight smile. 

"I think it would be very strange if either of us weren't. 

...Have I mentioned, recently, that I'm glad I married you? I do trust your instincts here more than I trust my own."

"Well, I'm glad to have your trust."

"I'm happy that I married you, too. Happier than I thought possible, sometimes, tiredness with work notwithstanding. And I guess I'm thinking now, about - how terrifying it was, when I was doing everything wrong, ignoring my parents and not having a husband, in order to end up here. I'm so lucky, you know, that it worked out? And so - bull-headed, and risk-taking, and arguably insane, and probably wouldn't be here, being happy, if not for those things. And I guess I'd like for our children not to have to be so terrified, or quite so bull-headed, when they decide to chase their own priorities in some way that looks obviously stupid to us. And I know you do, too, but -  it's obvious, really, when you look at it like that, why I'd think about material self-sufficiency, and you'd think about conscience."

"We really do want the same things for them."

"Yeah. I think we do. I'm not entirely sure whether we disagree on how to get there or on - emphasis, mostly, but I think we're targeting very close to the same thing, here."

"Emphasis, I think. Maybe before we fight about apprenticeships we should think about what we want Rahim to learn while he's still five years old."

"That does seem a better place to start."

"Thinking about what you said, though, before I lose the thought - I obviously want our children to feel that they can come to us for help. When they're five, and when they're fifteen, and when they're grown. But I also don't want them to feel like they have to, if they don't want to, and I think that goes even in situations where they do need help from someone. It's - less likely that they'll end up feeling that they have nobody who can help them if they've spent some time with several adults, and I think that's another reason why I don't want to adamantly keep other people from helping raise him. ...maybe that is part of what I want him to learn when he's five. That there are lots of people who can help him if he needs it."

"I want him to learn that to the extent that it's true. I trust our household and your sisters and Catherine – mostly, maybe more with our children than with her own – and the Inquistor, of course. Certainly there are many other people in the world who would be good to him, but not so many as the ones who'd want to use him to influence us. I'm not sure he can reliably tell the difference at five."

"Oh, sure. I'm not imagining we stop using discernment in who we leave him with."

"I wish there was anyone on that list who really wasn't our client or our friend first – well, there's Nefreti."

"I think that's fine, at this age. Eventually we might want to go out of our way to give him the chance to meet people we don't know, but he's five."

"It might be good for him to know Tariq's parents better, at that. But you know them more than I do."

"Oh, I probably should take him there sometime. I suppose they're fine."

"We don't have to if you don't like."

"No, they really are fine. It's just awkward. And time-consuming, I guess, if I'm the one taking him. But I agree that he should get to know his grandparents."

"I suppose I could take him. I'm more flexible with my time, and anyway my work can travel." 

"That would be temporally if not socially convenient. Maybe we can visit them together, the next time we head down to Mut, so it's less out of the blue."

"I'm not really sure what else someone learns at five."

"I could read and figure and write rather badly, and understand Infernal reasonably well. And then there was a great deal of memorizing."