Boys and Reading

I used to listen to NPR on the twenty-minute ride into school every morning.  Now, the minivan speeds along in total silence as my sixth and second-grade sons read in the back seat.  I feel lucky that both my boys love to read, but I think there is more to it than luck.

I know that I do a lot wrong as a father of two boys.  I feel a little guilty about not teaching my oldest son how to throw a perfect spiral and about using a little too much sarcasm at the dinner table, but I do feel pretty good about encouraging them to love reading.  Since they were babies, I have been an active reader to my boys, and now that they are older, we read together almost every night.  It has become our time together to relax in the evening.  For the last year, we have been reading classics almost exclusively.  Treasure Island, Swiss Family Robinson, King Arthur, and Sherlock Holmes have been our evening fare, and we all look forward to this time whether it is fifteen minutes or an hour.  

I have been amazed at how my eight-year-old can pick up the general plot lines of a Sherlock Holmes story.  He has learned to keep his questions to a minimum and attempt to figure out the vocabulary and complex mysteries on his own.  A couple of weeks ago, we had an extended conversation about why Sherlock would want to take a seven-percent solution of cocaine as a remedy to boredom.  Last night, they learned a little about the KKK as we finished “The Five Orange Pips.”

Reading together also gives us a common experience and vocabulary.  As my oldest son gets deeper into the middle school years and seeks more privacy, I know that I will always have something to talk with him about.  When we have difficulty expressing our emotions to each other, we still get to share a part of our lives every night.  I hope that this bond will be something that he can count on when the world goes topsy-turvy.

I know that lots of dads find this same connection with their sons through sports, and I’m certainly not knocking that time together.  I’m sure that I could learn something about parenting from them.  But when the backseat is quiet in the mornings, I continue to smile to myself knowing that my sons are imagining themselves in a world far removed from the traffic of Interstate 40.