I’m fresh out of clever title ideas. I think it’s the fact that I haven’t written anything other than a blog in over a month and I’m insane enough to start yet another year long project that’s even more complicated that the first. Ugh.
On Monday I talked about some of the crazy stuff that happened while I was babysitting a few weeks ago. I left out one thing, though, because I felt like it needed a post of its own.
So we were at my house and I was trying to find the kid things to do. I was looking around, and BAM! Inspiration. Out of the corner of my eye, I found a few old Dr. Suess books and settled the kid down on the couch. I read The Lorax with a myriad of different funny voices and made sure she could always see the pictures. But she was not having it.
I started reading “Oh The Places You’ll Go”, one of my favorite Suess classics, but she only sat through a few pages before wiggling off the couch and getting her hands into any drawer she could reach. She told me the books were “boring”.
Boring? Boring?? Dr. Suess, BORING?! I loved those books as a kid! No, scratch that, I loved books. And then I started evaluating this strange child as she became fascinated with bingo, of all things. When I’d go to her house, it was not the bookshelf she gravitated towards, but Barbies and the TV. In fact, I don’t even think they had a bookcase.
And that makes me really sad. Because books are important, especially to kids. Because if your kid likes to read, then he/she automatically has a leg up in school. Enjoying reading is something that you can’t teach, you have to be brought up with it. This little girl already has problems staying on task and doing more intellectual things. Reading to your kid really isn’t that hard, and I feel bad for her that her parents never made the effort.
If I ever have children, the first thing they’re going to remember is me reading to them. And I’m not going to read that Dora the Explorer rubbish, I’m going to read Tomie dePaola, Dr. Suess, and other classics that stand the test of time and actually have substance. My kids will beg for me to read them books instead of watching movies and TV.
Sometimes, I say screw technology. Sometimes, the best things come in the simplest, oldest packages.
*Update*
So I wrote this post about a week ago, but I have some more things to say. There’s another side of this issue that I was introduced to last night and this morning that I thought I should mention before you lose all hope for the upcoming generation.
Right now, a six year old, her months old baby sister, and her parents are staying at my house. They were just traveling through, and our moms are friends.
So last night, before I left for The Last Airbender (which I’ll review in a bonus post because I love you), she just started wandering around my house and stumbled upon my room, where I was watching A Very Potter Sequel (which is just about the funniest thing in the entire world). She then hung out with me for a while, telling me little gems such as “I like dinosaurs and rocks”. Coolest kid ever? I think so.
Her favorite television channels include Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, and the History Channel. I know she likes to read because I would read to her sometimes when she still lived in town and I babysat her. She loves school and learning things, and claims that she likes school work. She says please and thank you more than anyone I went to high school with, and cleans up after herself. She doesn’t demand anything, just chatters. This morning as I was getting ready to leave for Borders (she was the only one in her family awake yet) she was making up an interpretive dance to an Owl City song.
I know at first glance it seems unfair to compare this little girl to the little girl down the street that this post was originally about, because the little girl I’m praising is almost two years older, but she’s always been like this. I used to babysit her when she was four, and she has always been a mature, polite, intellectual little thing.
So I suppose, hanging out with her, I’ve regained a little bit of faith. This one kid gives me hope for our future. But sometimes, one kid is all it takes.
