Patrick Rothfuss, best-selling author of “The Kingkiller Chronicles,” writes down a moment to remember as a father.
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I’d just managed to sit down at the computer and start on my e-mail today when I heard a very distinctive type of silence in the hallway outside my office.
Our stairway is noisy, you see. If an adult goes up or down, each step groans like a damned soul. But someone lighter. Someone child-sized, can come up the stairs with barely any noise at all except for a tiny creak here or there and the tiny tamping of a tiny foot.
I looked up and saw Oot standing outside the doorway, positioned so I couldn’t see him at all unless I leaned over in my chair. He knocked on the doorframe very, *very* softly. His feet had made more noise.
This is something we’ve worked hard to instill in him. I have an old model-m keyboard. It’s clicky, and you can hear it easily. The rule is that if I’m typing in my office, he isn’t supposed to come in or bother me. Hence the sneaking up the stairs. Hence the quietest of quiet knocks.
“Hello my sweet child,” I reach out for him and he comes over to give me a hug. He kisses my arm.
“Dad, I was wondering if…” he looks around the room. “I was wondering….” His eyes continue to dart around, almost desperately.
At this age, I can still read him like a book. He isn’t really wondering anything. He doesn’t really want anything in particular. He just wants to spend time with me.
And time has been in short supply lately. I’m scrambling with my team to get ready for the launch of our yearly Worldbuilders fundraiser on Monday. I’ve been spending hour after hour e-mailing people, looking for authors and publishers who would like to donate books. Looking for corporate sponsors. Looking for game designers and musicians and members of the Geek Glitterati that might be willing to help us spread the word.
And if that weren’t enough, we launched a huge sale in The Tinker’s Packs that’s running through the weekend. So I’ve been trying to promote that as well.
I am a fixer by nature. I want to make things better. It’s not just something I like to do, it’s closer to being a compulsion with me.
Generally speaking, I don’t mind this particular twist in my psyche. But it leads to some problems. Because if you’re clever enough, you can see how almost *anything* needs fixing. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but I’m fairly clever.
I also subscribe to Pratchett’s philosophy of “Personal isn’t the same as important.”
The other problem is that I’m good at math.
Again, both of these are good things. The problem is when you put all three of them together. If you’re good at math, and you like to fix things, and personal isn’t the same as important, you end up coming to some really hard conclusions. One of these conclusions is that if I spend an hour sending out a few more e-mails I can probably get a few more people to blog about the sale in the Tinker’s Packs. This would easily bring in another thousand dollars that we’ll be able to donate to Heifer International.
A thousand dollars means nine goats would go to needy families. That means nine families would have more food, more money, healthier children, and a *vastly* better lifestyle. Not just for a month or two. Forever. And the effect snowballs, because goats have babies….
A thousand dollars means nine goats would go to needy families. That means nine families would have more food, more money, healthier children, and a *vastly* better lifestyle. What is more important? Improving the lives of nine families, or me spending an hour with my son?
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What is more important? Improving the lives of nine families, or me spending an hour with my son?
The cruel mathematics of the situation are pretty clear-cut. I want to spend time with my boy, but making the world a better place is more important.
So nine times out of ten, I make that choice. And so my boy is constantly desperate to spend time with me. And I am lonely for him.
“Dad,” he says. “Dad, I was…” He looks at the rug, the wall, my robe. “Dad, I was wondering….”
“Would you like to play the Bee Game?” I ask.
“Oh yeah!” he says. Jumping just a little bit in his excitement. “I would *love* to!”
So we go into the other room and play the A-BEE-C Match game.
In some ways, it’s a perfect game for his age. Letter identification. Reading. Spelling. I believe the term is “edutainment.” It’s a pretty game too, comes in a tidy package shaped like a bee. But in terms of game design, it’s kind of a mess. The balance of the game is way off. And they should have brought in someone with some serious math to design what letters go on which dice and how many. Because right now, there tends to be a point in the game where you roll, and nothing happens, and then you roll… and nothing happens. And again. And again.
Now I’m aware that this isn’t supposed to be Go. The point is having fun with my child. But still, it’s bad game design. Broken things bother me. Broken things want for fixing, because I am at the very heart of me a fixer.
Plus it makes the game drag on. Not monopoly bad. But pretty bad. A child’s game should be done in 10-15 minutes. It shouldn’t take half an hour. Exacerbating this is the fact that Oot loves to shake the dice a lot. Those of you who play a lot of games know how irritating dramatic dice rollers can be. So I’m trying to relax and enjoy myself, but its hard. And the game is flawed, and Oot is distractable, and the game has just dragged its way past 40 minutes….
♦◊♦
And here’s the key thing: there are kids starving to death in the other room. That’s what it feels like to me.
A couple days ago I wrote about how I had a moment of happiness during thanksgiving because not only did I give myself the night off work, but I gave myself the night off *thinking* about work.
This is quite possibly the central problem in my life right now.
You see, if I work on my book, I feel guilty because I’m neglecting my son. If I play with my boy, I feel guilty that I’m neglecting my work.
And if, god forbid, I take some time to myself to play a game or read a book, or goof off on facebook, I feel twice as guilty.
There are always so many things that I should be doing, and I just can’t do all of them, let alone all at once.
So I’m laying on the floor, playing the bee game with my son, trying desperately not to be irritated and impatient. I can’t get bitchy at my little boy for wanting to roll his dice in a certain way. That’s unacceptable.
Then he leans, goes onto all fours, and starts to crawl away from his dice. And I know I shouldn’t snap at him for getting distracted. He’s four. That’s okay. But even so, I need to finish this game, (There are starving kids in the other room) so I open my mouth and despite my best intentions, I know what I’m going to say will end up sounding like irritated, disappointed dad.
But he’s not crawling away, he was just coming closer to give me a kiss on my leg. Then he goes back to the dice. It’s the sweetest thing. We play for another minute or so. I shake and roll. He shakes and shakes and shakes and shakes and rolls.
Then he says, “You should always remember this time.”
I look up at him, “What?”
“You should always remember this time,” he says. “Right now.”
It was so uncanny. It was something I never would have dared to make up in fiction because it would be too unbelievable. If I’d ever read something like this in a piece of fiction, I would have rolled my eyes at it and instantly thought less of the author.
I didn’t want to press him any further on what he meant. He’s bashful about that. And honestly, I was a little scared to. If something happened to him, it would destroy me. There would be nothing left of me to put back together. I just agreed with him instead, because you should agree with someone when they make a very good point. “You’re right,” I said. “I should remember this time.”
(That’s why I decided to write this down, you realize. So I would always remember that time.)
We went back to playing the game. I managed to relax a bit, but not as much as I’d like to. Because as much as I want to relax and spend the whole Saturday afternoon with my boy, the truth is, there *are* kids starving in the other room, and I don’t know how to stop caring about that.
As with all true stories, there’s no good ending to this one. No real resolution. No closure. Just a stopping point.
I’m sorry about that,
pat
Thanks Pat, I am sending this article to my son. He is in prison. He is trying hard to learn how to be a good dad to his two year old daughter he has yet to meet. He has survived a brain mass at 17. Heroin addiction and a horrible motorcycle accident that claimed the life of the driver and broke his spine. Unfortunately, the medications and trauma took him down before he met his daughter. He loves your books so I think he will love this article! Thank you for expressing the tension of work and raising a child… Read more »
Thank you for sharing this. Very moving 🙂
A child’s mind is a glorious thing. There wonderfully funny and, to be honest, weird moments that we no longer remember from when we were four. Then from that child’s mouth comes something so profound it takes your breath away. Treasure hides inside their perfect little heads.
Thank you for sharing this with us, Pat <3
What a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing!
Pat, keep making time for your son. In the blink of an eye the child will become a young man who prefers the company of his friends. Cherish this time now, and return to your good works later. The work will still be there….
Love, from a mom with older kids. And a great fan of your work. Now put your son to bed and finish that next book we’re waiting for!
hi pat
Pat!<3 Eloquent, entertaining, and thought-provoking as always.