My son is five. My daughter is about one. Whatever I am trying to build in my life right now, they are too young to understand most of it.

I won’t pretend they already know what I am doing or why. They don’t, not really. What they know is much simpler.

They know their father lives and works in Dhaka. He comes home every two or three months and usually stays for a few days. When he comes home, he spends time with them. He takes them outside. He brings toys. When he is not home, he talks to them on the phone almost every day. He sends money to the family. He reads books. He works on a computer and a phone. He does not like packaged food, and he says so often enough that they know it too. That is about what they understand right now. That is enough for now.

My son notices when I am away and when I am back. When I first come home, he wants to stay close to me for a while. If I go out somewhere during those few days, he asks where I went. When I leave again, he usually asks the same question. Baba, when will you come again? He used to want to come with me back to Dhaka. Now he mostly just asks and lets it go. He is learning the pattern, even if he does not understand the reason for it.

Most of our phone calls are ordinary. How are you? Did you eat? What happened today? But he also tells me things. Something that happened at preschool. Something a classmate did. A drawing he made. Once he folded a paper plane and thought it flew especially far, so he ran to the phone to tell me. Baba, look how nice this is. These are small conversations, but they are most of what we have right now, so they matter more than they would otherwise.

My daughter is harder to describe honestly, because she is only one. She knows me and is happy when I am home, and she follows me around during those days. But I do not think she understands who I am the way my son is starting to. A few days ago she took her first steps. A few steps, then sitting down, then getting up again to try once more. I was in Dhaka for most of it. I am not going to make more of that than it is. It is simply a fact about this stage of my life. I am missing some of her early days because of where my work is.

They also see me working on other things besides my job. Writing. A website. Sometimes making videos, which I usually do with them, so that part they actually enjoy. They do not understand what any of it is for. They cannot follow words like passive income or alternative income. But they can see that their father is trying to build something outside his regular job, even if they cannot name what it is.

When my son asks for things, I do not just say yes. He likes toys, cars, toy guns, small airplanes, and recently drones. He wanted a drone, and I told him not yet, since he is still too young to use one properly. I brought him a small airplane instead. There is also a small learning idea behind that. I like the thought that one day he could use a drone to see things from above and look at the world from a different angle, once he is old enough to handle it. On the other hand, I have spent more on good books and good drawing materials, even when they cost more than the ordinary versions, because I thought they were worth it at his age. So there is no fixed rule here. Sometimes the answer is not now. Sometimes it is worth the money. I decide based on his age and what actually seems useful, not just what he is asking for that week.

I also tell him sometimes that school is only one part of learning. He needs to read, ask questions, try things, and learn things on his own too. Learning should not stop just because school is over for the day. He is too young to really absorb that yet, but I say it anyway.

He knows I have a job, and once in a while he says something like, Baba, stay with us, don’t go to Dhaka. I usually answer him lightly. I have also told him that one day he could build something of his own. That does not mean he has to. I want him to know that working for someone else is not the only option.

Right now he changes his mind every few weeks anyway. Some days he wants to be a software engineer. Other days, a pilot. Last month it was an astronaut. I think it is normal at his age to keep changing his mind and trying different ideas. I am not trying to steer him toward any of it. I want to leave him room to keep exploring.

That is really the center of what I am trying to give both of my children, slowly and in ways they can understand at their age. Not a plan for their lives. Just the idea that there are different ways to live, and every path has its own advantages, problems, responsibilities, and risks. If they want to become doctors, they can. If they want to work at a company, they can. If they want to build something of their own, they can. I am not trying to push them toward one path over another. I want them to understand what each one actually involves before they choose, not after.

My grandfather worked for the railway. So did my mother’s father. Their families were large, but their lives were not built on salary alone. Alongside their jobs, they also had land, rice fields, fish, and other things that supported the household. I am not saying their life was easy or perfect. I am saying I grew up in a family history where a job and other resources existed side by side. Somewhere between their generation and mine, most families became much more dependent on salary alone, without much else behind it. I am only understanding this clearly now, in my forties, and I want my children to think about it earlier than I did.

I chose the ordinary path because it was the only path anyone ever showed me. Nobody sat me down and explained the different kinds of work or income there are, or what it means to depend less on one source of income, or the advantages and limits of different ways of living. I am not saying my choice was wrong. I am saying I did not have that information when I needed it. I want my children to have it earlier, so they can actually decide for themselves.

Right now, I have a job, and I am also trying to build other things after office hours, writing, learning, working on income that does not depend only on my salary. I could just finish my office work and rest for the evening instead. I am choosing to spend some of that time now so I might have more control over my own time later. I do not think of any of this as a contradiction. I know where I am, and I know roughly where I want to go. This is what building toward that actually looks like. A little work after office hours, then again the next day. If you want a different life, you usually have to build something first that makes it possible. That costs time and effort. I am not saying that to sound like a hero. It is simply true.

Someday, if my children read what I have written here, I don’t expect them to agree with everything, or with anything at all. That was never really the point. They can choose corporate work, government work, business, farming, city life, village life, or something I have never even thought of. They may decide that none of my ideas about self-reliance or village life are for them, and that would be fine too. I just want them to know that their father was trying to figure this out, and that he thought it was worth writing down.

Whatever they choose later, city or village, a job or something of their own, I want them to understand that they had a choice. I don’t want them to simply follow whatever path is placed in front of them, the way I did for a long time before I started asking questions.

They are still too young to understand any of this. That is fine. I am not in a hurry. I will keep talking to them about these things a little at a time. Maybe when they are older, some of it will make sense.

And when that time comes, I want them to choose for themselves.