Reading to My Kids Isn’t Selfless

When my first child was three months old, I decided to start implementing a consistent bedtime routine, in the hopes that she might start sleeping through the night. I settled into the wicker rocker chair with her in my lap and took The Poky Little Puppy down from the shelf. We’d been gifted a boxed set of Little Golden Books, and I would rotate through them, three or four each night, before nursing her and tucking her into her crib.

I was eighteen years old, and there was a lot I didn’t know about raising a child. There is a lot I wish I could go back and tell the terrified young mom I once was. But this one thing — reading aloud to my child every night — I got absolutely right. And I’ve been doing it every night since. For twenty-five years.

In all of the various homes my daughter and I lived in when she was small, when I was single mom and we moved nearly every year, this one thing was consistent. Our reading time in the evenings was an anchor, for both of us — something we could hold onto and feel secure in what our family meant. A love of reading was the strongest value I knew how to convey, and it was one I cultivated through daily practice.

What a joy when the board books gave way to picture books. What a joy when her chubby baby fingers first started wanting to turn the pages herself. What a delight to rediscover my own…