Sasuke & the Uchiha Clan: An Analysis

17. Life in the Uchiha Clan

Not much is mentioned about Sasuke's daily life, so what an average for little Sasuke would be like is impossible to accurately speculate.

Pre-academy days, Sasuke probably played a lot like any normal kid. It seems likely that Sasuke would have had at least a few playmates around his age that he hung out with. One can easily imagine younger Uchiha close to his age that he might have had playdates with every now and then, though nothing canonically backs or supports that, it's purely my personal speculation.

Whenever we see Sasuke's flashbacks, it's nearly always moments either at his house, at school, or training. We could assume he spends much or most of his time at school, but when he's not at school, most of his time is spent at home or training outside in the training grounds. The Uchiha had their own training grounds as stated in the novels, so Sasuke probably doesn't usually stray far away from the Uchiha compound.

It's likely Sasuke spent some time playing with the other children, although I think he was the kind of kid who could keep himself entertained for hours, even if it was a bit lonely. We don't know whether the academy had weekends off, since it's a fictional world that might not follow the same schedule that the real world does. Although it's reasonable to assume that the ninja academy had break days, but I'm not sure how much free time from school Sasuke would've had.

As an introvert, Sasuke probably spent a large amount of time by himself or among his immediate family rather than having lots of friendships outside of his family. That said, Sasuke is on friendly terms with his fellow Uchiha, but how deep those relationships to his other clans is open for speculation and guesswork.

Sasuke's familiarity with the Uchiha baker couple may indicate that Sasuke ran errands for his family sometimes. Since Uruchi asks Sasuke what he would like from the bakery, we can deduce Sasuke was a regular customer. One can easily imagine Teyaki or Uruchi doting on the young Uchiha boy by occasionally offering Sasuke free treats every so often, similar to how Teuchi would occasionally give Naruto a bowl of ramen on the house.

As for pastime activities, Sasuke's primary focus seemed to be training. Being a ninja was his goal, and he devoted a lot of his free time to training. Like any normal kid, he enjoyed toys as a young child, like his stuffed dinosaur (I can't help but feel Sasuke particularly liked his stuffed dinosaur toy and it now seems almost like a subtle foreshadowing of Sasuke Retsuden) or the building blocks (which one could view that as a reference to Sasuke's INTJ personality type, known as "the architect"), and toy shuriken (pointing to the obsession that ninja families have with their work, since even their infants play with child-safe ninja weapons, and also symbolically foreshadowing Sasuke's future career as a shinobi).

We also learn that little Sasuke knew how to hunt, implying that he and his family, most likely Itachi and Fugaku, went on hunting trips and took little Sasuke along. Apparently even from a very young age, Sasuke was particularly adept at using the bow, so archery must've been a side hobby of his. So Sasuke's main hobbies included playing with his toys, training, spending time with his family, archery, and hunting.

Sasuke's family was involved in his training to varying degrees, seeing as how all three members of his family were shown or implied to train Sasuke. Fugaku trained his younger son to use fireball jutsu, Itachi performed a target-practice demo in the woods and offered to train Sasuke after the giant boar mishap, and Mikoto promised Sasuke that she would help him with his shuriken practice. Sasuke wasn't shy about asking his big brother for training assistance, seeing as how Sasuke requested that Itachi train him multiple times. Whether Sasuke trained more often with his family or more often alone by himself is up to speculation, although I'd assume Sasuke spent more time training alone than with his family around. Shisui was possibly a training partner sometimes as well. 

Some might wonder about Sasuke's position within the clan as the clan leader's son. Did that entail extra responsibilities or pressures? I'm going to guess no. It means Sasuke is positioned a bit more prominently among his clanmates, since the clan leader's family is likely to be more prominent than other Uchiha families. Though how slight or large that prominence was is hard to guess. It didn't seem like Sasuke was particularly famed among his clan, so I would guess that his status as the clan leader's son didn't afford particularly strong reverence among his clanmates. Mostly it appeared that Sasuke's clanmates treated him as an equal, average kid.

Certainly Sasuke faced pressure as he was constantly compared to his older brother, but Sasuke was not expected to achieve any particular responsibilities as the clan leader's son. Of course, that could be because he's only 7 years old, although Fugaku had no problem with expecting his firstborn son to take on a lot of responsibility at an extremely young age, seeing as how Fugaku use Itachi as a spy for his clan when he was 10-12 years old.

But in general, Sasuke was regarded as a normal child and wasn't treated differently or as any more special than the rest of the clan. If he was, it was in minor ways. From what I saw, while the clan leader was treated with special respect from his subordinates, neither Mikoto nor Itachi nor Sasuke seem to be regarded as in higher standing than other clan members, though this could be due to limited information or lack of exploration of the daily lives of the Uchiha clan.

Since Sasuke himself never muses about how being the son of the clan leader was particularly demanding on him, I don't feel like it placed any extra burden on him. So I don't think being the son of the clan leader changed Sasuke's lifestyle much than what it would be if he were just an average, regular Uchiha.