reading to children

I read a lot to my daughter, as my parents had read a lot to me and my siblings.

Mom would sit in the big green easy chair in our living room and my brothers and I would surround the chair, seated on the floor while she read.  My most memory story read by my mother was Johnny Tremaine. Virtually all the books my mother read were targeted for boys' interests. My brother would not have sat around and listened to any books they considered girl books.

My mom justified reading only boy stories by having us vote. She would say we live in a democracy and we will vote.  I had two, three then four brothers. Guess how many times I won votes in mom's democracy?  She also employed voting to choose what we would watch for our one hour a day of allowed television viewing.

Everyone in my family had been read to growing up. And everyone in my family read to my daughter when they got to see her, for we always lived one or two states away from them.  A favorite memory, for me, is seeing my dad read books to Rosie after his left arm was left completely limp after a doctor messed up some test.  He had his good arm around tiny toddler Rosie and had her turn the pages. She was his first grandchildren. He doted on her. My dad doted on all kids, especially kin.

I always traveled with books for Rosie, of course.

Once, Rosie, my brother Dave, his then-partner Tom and I went out for deep dish pizza in Chicago. There is a long wait when ordering deep dish pizza. At least there was thirty years ago.  As Rosie grew restless in the restaurant, I pulled out a book to read to her.

Tom grew sad and said "We never read to Matt."  Matt was his son during his brief marriage to a woman. "I feel so bad. It never occurred to us to read to him."

I tut-tutted and did not say what I was thinking.  I assured Tom that, although I had never met his son, I was sure he turned out fine. What I was thinking was along the lines of "Tom is not very smart, I wonder if his parents were, and his son sounds like a loser."  His son had just flunked out of community college.

Who doesn't read to their kids?  I guess some folks don't. Reading to Rosie at the end of the day, which I did daily until she began reading on her own, was a highlight of every day. We'd snuggled together and read. Happiness.