They Never Asked to Be Born

bolanoTrawling Daddytypes.com, where it’s been a busy week full of love for wood and hate for Lufthansa, I came across this, from the new compilation of last interviews given by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño:

In the end, one could talk for hours about the relationship between a father and a son. The only clear thing is that a father has to be willing to be spat upon by his son as many times as the son wishes to do it. Even still the father will not have paid a tenth of what he owes because the son never asked to be born. If you brought him into this world, the least you can do is put up with whatever insult he wants to offer.

[The original interview excerpt came through Biblioklept, a site which, in the dusky twilight before DadWagon began, came up with a list of their five favorite fictional dads that we could not improve upon if we tried.]

I feel a bit guilty about Bolaño: my review copy of The Savage Detectives from 2007 went unread, victim of the time-management calamity that is my life after Dalia. It sits there on my shelf waiting for the day that feels like it will never come, when I have Lots of Time to Read. For now, it’s good to hear Bolaño’s voice in whatever way I can.

And this quote struck me in particular because it claims to offers a way of understanding one of the great cyclical mysteries of parenting: why our children eventually betray us.

I worry about betrayal and abandonment the way that some parents worry about car crashes or swine flu. Except that my fear will certainly come to pass. Because all children betray their parents. They hold grudges. They nurse regrets. They reject advice and screen calls. (And those are the loyal ones. Other children pistol-whip their parents because lunch isn’t ready.)

I understand that most of this is part of normal development, of becoming independent. But in all the time I was busy betraying my father in these little ways, I never knew how much work it takes to be a parent. And more important, how much you care about your kid, and therefore how much those betrayals must hurt.

I know I have at least a decade before my kids’ perfidy begin in earnest. But already I’ve tried to imagine how to cope, and all I’ve been able to come up with is that you have to find a way to distance yourself from your kid, maybe even preemptively. It’s a cold and cowardly idea—that in your heart you should begin rejecting them before they start reject you. Yet nothing else occurred to me.

Until Bolaño. The beauty of what he’s saying is that he doesn’t argue for protecting yourself at all from your sons. Give them an open target for their spit and invective. Because sons don’t owe their fathers anything; on the contrary, the fathers are the ones who owe, for having brought the sons into this world.

A bit ridiculous, right? If Nico could talk, he’d no doubt say he’s more happy to be alive than not. He’s got a lifetime supply of Cheerios, for Chrissakes, and 24-hour butler service. But what Bolaño is really saying is, Don’t pretend that having a kid is some kind of saintly sacrifice. It’s far more self-serving than that. Couples have children for lots of selfish reasons. They have children because they think it will solve problems in their own relationship (a terrible idea, by the way). They have them so that someone can carry on the family name, or so that someone will take care of them when they grow old. Nico, like a lot of second children, was born in part because we thought it would be good for Dalia to have a sibling. That’s not a role that helps him much, nor one that he asked for.

All of which helps me rethink the (hopefully minor) estrangements to come. I am not the victim. I am, as usual, the perp. And when the time comes, I should take my punishment like a man.

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About Nathan

Nathan Thornburgh is a contributing writer and former senior editor at TIME Magazine who has also written for the New York Times, newyorker.com and, of course, the Phnom Penh Post. He suspects that he is messing up his kids, but just isn’t sure exactly how.

5 thoughts on “They Never Asked to Be Born

  1. One of the most surprising things about becoming a parent this year was just how fast my son became his own person. I know he needs me — to feed him, to get him from here to there, to make the decisions about how many times a toy can be dropped on the floor before it needs to be cleaned off — and is attached to me in a way that might someday be called love, but he’s really the star of his own show already. Which is how it should be, or at least, how it is, but in a way it makes it a little easier to think about that future independence. It starts almost right away, and if you can accept that, maybe it doesn’t feel so much like betrayal. Maybe.

  2. If one feels the need to prepare for “betrayal” – which may or may not come…
    it follows that we should prepare for illnesses, cancer, surgeries and our certain demise.

    The time spent agonizing over calamities that may or may not come is a shameful waste. Doom and disappointment doesn’t need thoughtful advance preparation. Preparation for “wonder and discovery” instead requires less work.

    Real betrayal requires a 2-party contract – why do we need shackle these “visitors” anyhow?

    Who thinks that the thoroughly “obedient” clone of the parent is the ultimate creation?

    Abandonment, also, cannot occur without a 2-party Agreement. Does your Contract include the part where you die and ditch the kid/s?

    Is a life with guarantees for unstinting fealty, loyalty, respect, adulation, obeisance, from our kids – free of inexplicabilities, disagreements, and challenges tolerable for more than a month or so?

    Is it perfidia if your kid comes to know that you expect it of them and then delivers according to expectations?

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