For me they're aspirational. I haven't played a pen and paper RPG in over 20 years, but like to imagine I'll find the time. With a baby on the way, in about 8 to 12 years I'll have a captive audience to play with, between her and my wife.
It's the same with our giant shelf of board games that are better with 3 players. We're playing the long game here.
You can start when they're as little as 4 and have decent results. I started with mine when they were 5 and 3 with Hero Kids and by the time they hit 6 and 8, they'd graduated to Pathfinder 2 (edit: albeit with a great deal of help/handholding)
10/10, would indoctrinate children with gateway drugs games again
Exactly. I think we actually "started" just by giving them coloring pages of cartoony fantasy creatures and characters and then making up stories about goblins and dragons on our morning walks, which in turn got them excited about their characters and miniatures and rolling dice
Same... I bought every book I could afford in hopes of getting my wife and daughter into it... we played a handful of campaigns and then they lost interest.
I still hold out hope that someday we might return...