This piece is inspired by a couple of news articles shared around recently.
I’ve seen a Guardian article: Most Parents Don't Enjoy Reading to their Children Survey Suggests, shared recently, with comments about how parents are lacking. How reading to their children was a highlight of their parenting. But...
"HarperCollins said that many parents focus on the literacy element of reading, seeing it as a skill, rather than encouraging a love for reading in their children."
This is the focus of the proposed English curriculum in Aotearoa New Zealand. There is no mention of reading for pleasure. Reading is 'marketed' as a skill. There are so many standardised tests children are measured against. There's a Spinoff article by a teacher responding to the new English curriculum, and how they won't teach it.
Reading is a habit. It's part of my daily life, and I make time for it. Like I do knitting. But, if we are socialised to believe that our time should be spent 'productively', then hobbies and fun are seen as wasting time.
My mother is a reader. She always has been. But she taught herself to read and knit, as her grandmother believed knitting was productive/good, and reading was unproductive/bad.
Instead of blaming parents, how about we blame capitalism. Or, question why parents are reluctant to read aloud. Maybe they have dyslexia, or other reading difficulties. Maybe they were teased when they struggled reading aloud in school. Maybe they have come to learn English as adults.
Maybe they're working every single hour they can, so they can keep a roof over their family's head, and some food in those puku. Maybe, when they get home from work they're struggling to put dinner out, put the kids to bed, do the housework - and reading is in the too-much basket. They don't have the time. They don't have the energy.
Trying to break generational habits is hard. If you weren't read to as a child, and didn't grow up in a reading household, then how do you know you should create this environment for your children? If you know you should, how do you learn how to? This is much bigger than parents being lazy. Or resorting to devices.
And another thing, thanks to a comment on social media for the reminder! From the Guardian article:
"A significant gender disparity was identified, with 29% of 0- to two-year-old boys being read to every day or nearly every day compared with 44% of girls of the same age."
The gendering of reading!
Girls / mothers read, as it's as a passive activity. Boys / fathers don't read, but do active stuff. Like gaming and rough housing, or whatever. Reading is seen as not 'manly' and is discouraged as an activity for boys. See also boys not cuddled as much as girls. Toxic masculinity at heart.
I tried to synthesise the non-reading cycle and figure out where, and how, I could help break it.
New Zealand author Stacy Gregg has responded to the same Guardian article, but with the same thoughts as the original commentators, who raised my hackles.
Like Stacy, I've spent time at the Auckland Writers Festival over the weekend.
Like Stacy, I saw hundreds of enthusiastic readers, and book lovers, of all ages.
It was a wonderful, affirming weekend - that reached the converted.
Do you know how many presenters mentioned they weren't writers? That they felt like frauds? They were academics, who had written tens of thousands of words. But, were they writers?
Do you know who said this the most? Those whose backgrounds were outside the rank and file of the majority of the Festival goers. They were not pākehā. They were not middle class.
Do you know the background of the author - award-winning author - who didn't read an extract of their upcoming book? It sure as hell wasn't pākehā. And, they were dyslexic.
Habitual readers, those who read for pleasure, need to step back and out of their position of privilege. Instead, we should be looking at how we can help build a reading for pleasure culture in our communities. And try to reach the non-readers.
Parents are an easy target to blame in this discussion.
