I read bedtime stories to my kids. That may sound pretty normal, but I get strange looks now and then when I acknowledge that I still read nightly to all my five sons, aged 16 down to 7. At this point, I expect I will be reading to kids for as long as they live under my roof.
The older boys are normal teenagers. They don’t wear footie pajamas anymore. They play football and baseball for their school teams, wear shorts and hoodies even in the Minnesota winter, and love hanging with friends on Friday nights. I never actively decided to make a “till college do us part” commitment to nightly reading. It just never made sense to stop. It’s part of our “family culture” that nobody wants to erase.
Since the boys all sleep together in the same bunk-filled room, I can read to them all at once. Obviously, one does not read Goodnight Moon to teenagers, but a multi-tiered reading regimen works well for us. I start with a few picture books for the youngest, usually read just to him as older brothers are brushing teeth or packing up homework. From there I often proceed to a children’s novel like Superfudge or A Series of Unfortunate Events. Then we read a mature book, probably taken from my personal library. The system works well because the younger kids simply drop off to sleep as the readings get too old for them. (As it happens, that was also one of my goals!)
The time commitment is huge. That’s undeniable. But were you planning to spend time with your kids as they grew up? My family does lots of things together, but it’s hard to think of shared activities that are more rewarding than exploring books together. By reading to my boys every night, I’ve established an ongoing connection to their intellectual and moral development that I can’t imagine wanting to sever. I get to share all my favorite books with them, passing on the stories and ideas that have shaped me. At the same time, through the conversations that naturally arise in this setting, I get a sense of what they’re thinking about, too.
This latter benefit may be particularly potent for parents of boys, who aren’t always forthcoming with parents about their interior lives. For teenagers especially, books can provide a comfortable medium for seeking my input on the questions that trouble them. If I’m getting a battery of questions about a difficult friendship, a budding romance, or a protagonist’s struggles with religious faith, I can guess there’s a backstory there. But unless I’m seriously concerned about a particular kid, I probably won’t push for more than they care to share. At times, a conversation that began with a book has paved the way for a more open discussion of something personal. If not, that’s fine too; what matters is how the books open pathways to many forms of discourse. I sometimes wonder: How well would I even know my children without the assistance of Bilbo Baggins, Sam Gribley, and the rabbits of Watership Down?
The intellectual development is just as crucial. We do not homeschool, which means that I have outsourced to others the task of teaching my children about gerunds, state capitals, and differential equations. I’m comfortable with that, but reading seems different. Is there any real substitute for hours spent exploring books with the assistance of a mentor? Though we may call them “bedtime stories,” our nightly sessions proceed like a table read, with me pausing periodically to answer questions, assess comprehension, and explain things as necessary. This enables the boys to profit from books that would be too difficult for them to read alone. Along the way, though, they learn the background knowledge and habits of mind they need to be independent readers. Judging by some of the studies I see, an alarming number of young people never learn this, which is a terrible loss both for them and for society. I’m not letting that happen to my kids. The periodic table can be left to a schoolteacher, but I’m going to make sure they know how to read a book.
