Things My Son Needs to Know about the World

by Fredrik Backman

To my son: I want to apologize. For everything I’m going to do over the next eighteen or so years. For everything I’ll miss. Everything I won’t understand. All the notes about parent-teacher conferences you won’t want to show me. For all the times I’ll embarrass you. All the camps and field trips I’ll volunteer myself to. All the girlfriends or boyfriends you’ll never want to bring home for dinner. For doing my mom-was-wrong-and-dad-was-right dance around other people. For that time when your school invites all the parents to a softball tournament and I take it a bit too seriously. For calling your math teacher “a frikkin’ flathead!” For trying to high-five your friends. For buying a minivan. For wearing shorts. For being late the first time you’re invited to a real birthday party. For being pissed when there are lines for the rides at the amusement park. For calling the assistant in the skateboard shop “man.” For not understanding that you would rather do gymnastics than play soccer. For all the times I forget to lock the bathroom door—what is seen can’t be unseen. For the holidays. The cowboy hat. The REAL MEN WEIGH OVER 200 POUNDS T-shirt. The speech at your high school graduation party. For all the times I get a bit drunk and start telling the joke about the two Irishmen in a boat again. I really, really want to apologize for all those things. But when you’re the most angry at me, I want you to try to remember that, to me, you’ll always be the tiny one-year-old boy sta...

Haha

To my son: I want to apologize. For everything I’m going to do over the next eighteen or so years. For everything I’ll miss. Everything I won’t understand. All the notes about parent-teacher conferences you won’t want to show me. For all the times I’ll embarrass you. All the camps and field trips I’ll volunteer myself to. All the girlfriends or boyfriends you’ll never want to bring home for dinner. For doing my mom-was-wrong-and-dad-was-right dance around other people. For that time when your school invites all the parents to a softball tournament and I take it a bit too seriously. For calling your math teacher “a frikkin’ flathead!” For trying to high-five your friends. For buying a minivan. For wearing shorts. For being late the first time you’re invited to a real birthday party. For being pissed when there are lines for the rides at the amusement park. For calling the assistant in the skateboard shop “man.” For not understanding that you would rather do gymnastics than play soccer. For all the times I forget to lock the bathroom door—what is seen can’t be unseen. For the holidays. The cowboy hat. The REAL MEN WEIGH OVER 200 POUNDS T-shirt. The speech at your high school graduation party. For all the times I get a bit drunk and start telling the joke about the two Irishmen in a boat again. I really, really want to apologize for all those things. But when you’re the most angry at me, I want you to try to remember that, to me, you’ll always be the tiny one-year-old boy sta...

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To my son: I want to apologize. For everything I’m going to do over the next eighteen or so years. For everything I’ll miss. Everything I won’t understand. All the notes about parent-teacher conferences you won’t want to show me. For all the times I’ll embarrass you. All the camps and field trips I’ll volunteer myself to. All the girlfriends or boyfriends you’ll never want to bring home for dinner. For doing my mom-was-wrong-and-dad-was-right dance around other people. For that time when your school invites all the parents to a softball tournament and I take it a bit too seriously. For calling your math teacher “a frikkin’ flathead!” For trying to high-five your friends. For buying a minivan. For wearing shorts. For being late the first time you’re invited to a real birthday party. For being pissed when there are lines for the rides at the amusement park. For calling the assistant in the skateboard shop “man.” For not understanding that you would rather do gymnastics than play soccer. For all the times I forget to lock the bathroom door—what is seen can’t be unseen. For the holidays. The cowboy hat. The REAL MEN WEIGH OVER 200 POUNDS T-shirt. The speech at your high school gradu...

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Because sooner or later, you’ll fall in love. And from then on, every sofa you own will be one long compromise.

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I know I’m still learning about what the word “inequality” really means. Every day. I have to. I’m a white, heterosexual, Western European man with an education and a job. There’s not a single organism in the entire universe who knows less about inequality than me.

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People used to shout, “Stand up like a real man,” in every possible context when I was a teenager. It took me a good few years into my twenties to realize that real men can also stay seated, shut up, and listen. And admit when they’re wrong.

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Because the only thing you can give to men who already have everything is a second chance.

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So: I will never tell you whether you should be religious or not. Or even if you should believe in God. That’s a thing between God and you, or not. As long as you are kind to your mother and don’t murder or steal or start supporting Manchester City or any other horrible thing like that, I genuinely don’t care whether your moral compass is shaped by an old book or a box of jam doughnuts. But if I’m going to try to explain to you how I feel the world works here, it would be more than a bit odd to leave out the topic of religion.

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I know that in a year or two, you’ll learn how to talk, and after that you’ll pretty quickly enter that phase where, regardless of what I say, you’ll always ask “Why?” Well, I can help you out right now by telling you that in 95 percent of the cases, the answer to “Why?” will be “Because people are really bloody stupid.” All right? All right.

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one of our favorite things was to wake up on a Sunday morning, look at one another, crawl back under the covers, and doze off again. Sometimes, I would get up and make coffee just so I could go back to bed and wake up in an apartment that smelled of freshly brewed coffee. Good times.

Ha!

And ONCE when you were taking a nap, I got the bedroom door and the balcony door mixed up and put you to bed on the outdoor furniture instead. But I got you in after fifteen minutes and it was only November and you were mostly fine and no one will ever know or call social services or anything as long as I never write any of this down in a book.

Ha

There are those who say that no one is born evil. There are even those who say that there aren’t any evil people at all. I’m not an academic, so I can’t give you a definite truth on the matter. All I know is that there are bastards. And that, if possible, I would really like it if you did not grow up to become one of them.

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