Years ago, before I had kids, I worked with a man who had come up with an explanation for why he wasn’t so successful. In a long, accusatory e-mail to his colleagues, he wrote that there are two kinds of people: those who only think about their career and those who think it is important to raise their children. He himself preferred to belong to the second kind.
He was a few years older than me. Together with the other childless colleague friends I laughed at him. So transparent, this attempt to make up an excuse for its own failure. He just wasn’t very good at his job and tried to blame his kids for it.
Just under twenty years later. Now I have children of my own. A large part of my work consists of writing books. In novels, as well as in movies, storylines are usually used – so that the characters go through a logical and explainable development. As a reader or viewer you have to be able to understand why these imaginary people make certain choices, you have to empathize with them in their struggle.
Real life isn’t that simple. In reality there is no clear, straight line that explains why we do something. Or just don’t. In real life, most things happen by chance, in the moment.
In real life, hardly a day goes by when you don’t have to make a direct decision: do I choose my work or my children? Do I continue working for another hour or do I walk over to my youngest son to read a book together so that he doesn’t lie blankly staring at a screen for another hour? Do I spend the weekend working or with my children?
With cartoon characters you often see an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. Here the choice is not so clear-cut, in fact both are angels. One angel wonders: how many years do I have left in which I can work? And above all: how many really productive years are there? In other words, how many books can I still write?
The second angel brings a different message. On their deathbed I have never heard anyone say: I wish I had worked more. Especially with dying men, the maniacal urge to prove that they had suffered from all their lives disappears, they often receive new insights at the last minute: if only I had worked less, why had I not spent more time with my children?
The problem with a book is that it can always wait, a child is here now. It is not the case that on reflection I agree with the colleague from twenty years ago, but I now understand what he meant then.
In the car with my oldest son, Sonny is now 15. I try to teach him things, in case he ever has children of his own. When asked what he wants to be when he grows up, Sonny has had an answer for years that consists of one word: rich.
I try to explain to him that I know several people who are rich. I once spent a few weeks professionally with Mino Raiola, the recently deceased football agent who built a fortune in the hundreds of millions. Mino did have children, and a wife, but he hardly saw them. He was always traveling and working.
“I have a nice life,” I tell Sonny. “I think that’s more important than money. I want to see you grow up.”
“Why do you want that?” asks Sonny. “What good is that to me? I’d rather we were rich.”
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of 7 June 2022