I Want My Son to Be a Bookworm

An old wish, revisited.

Photo by Maël BALLAND on Unsplash

Almost six years ago, I wrote a dream-castle sort of letter to my yet-unborn oldest child. I’m republishing it here today because I have a follow-up piece brewing, and I’d like to be able to link back to this one, so I’m giving it a home here on Substack. (Originally, it lived in a now-defunct publication about love and relationships on Medium.)

---

There’s a lot of hokum floating in and out of solid parenting advice. Some of it is harmless (let your unborn baby listen to classical music to make him smarter!) and some of it is a little horrifying (put an amber bead necklace on your child to magically stop teething pain, never mind the fact that it’s a strangulation and choking hazard!). Some of it is based in science, but then taken to the nth degree: the concept of reading to your baby in the womb, for instance.

Sure, babies in utero can hear sounds starting around the 16th week of development. And yes, obstetricians and pediatricians agree that hearing their parents’ voices can be soothing. A newborn can recognize the voice of its mother within moments of entering the outside world.

But at what stage in fetal development does auditory reading comprehension enter the picture? If I’m reading Fox in Socks aloud to my unborn baby when I’m 30 weeks pregnant, is he actually giggling at Dr. Seuss’ wordplay through the amniotic fluid?

Probably not.

Yet, despite the fact that my son is not due to be born until September¹, I find myself wanting to jump start the reading process anyway. Children whose parents read to them on a regular basis tend to be better adjusted and have a higher mental retention capacity once they start school, after all. (That one is from the American Academy of Pediatrics, so I’ll take it.) The “million word gap” between kindergarten-aged children who are exposed to several books every day versus children who are not is another powerful argument for reading. Surely I want him to be as prepared as possible as he embarks on that scary educational journey. I don’t want learning to be frustrating and fraught for him — I want him to feel confident, comfortable, secure in a strong background filled with words and pictures and ideas.

Could there possibly be any downside to fostering a love of reading in my son?

In the early days of my pregnancy I hauled three empty cardboard Boise Paper boxes home from work and have slowly filled them with thrift store finds, books once loved by another child which are now mine for twenty-five or fifty cents apiece. Curious George, Frog and Toad, Amelia Bedelia and other well-known characters are sharing space with less famous (but just as special) personages such as King Bidgood, Toot and Puddle, and Owen and Fuzzy, memories of my own younger days. My husband has begun practicing reading them out loud. Sometimes, in between folding tiny sleepers and onesies, I pause to flip through the covers, wondering which one might become the favorite.

Trips to the library were the highlight of my week as a small child. My family moved four times before I turned seven years old, and our home-base library kept changing. I’ve lost track of the number of buildings out of which I’ve staggered with a canvas tote bag full of more books than I could reasonably carry. I still have the first library card I got when I was twelve, and can still see the excitement in my preteen scrawled signature on the back, so thrilled at the independence of checking out my own books instead of using my mom’s card. (With this newfound freedom came the responsibility of my own late fees… less fun.)

But reading isn’t everything, reluctant as I may be to admit it.

I just finished reading — yes, I see the irony — There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather by Linda Akeson McGurk. McGurk, who was born in Sweden and has raised her two daughters both in the U.S. (with her American husband) and in Sweden, stresses the importance of unstructured, messy, in-all-weathers outdoor play that is touted in Scandinavia under the term frilufstliv. Mental and emotional health, she claims, are bolstered and uplifted by the simple effect of time spent outdoors. According to McGurk, Americans put too much emphasis on their children’s academic prowess and are frequently guilty of helicopter-parenting. “Let kids be kids,” is the underlying mantra of her memoir, brushing aside overachievers and Little Einsteins with a simple recommendation to buy your child a good pair of rain boots.

I’ll admit, I felt convicted. I identify far more with the hobbit than with the explorer. I understand the benefits of fresh air and exercise, but I’m more likely to be holed up indoors with a book in my hands or a keyboard on my lap than hiking the forests. But maybe I could stand to rethink that posture, at least where my son is concerned.

Sure, my neck of the United States is pretty different from Sweden, and the hands-off type of parenting McGurk promotes could warrant a call to Child Protective Services in American culture (a fact she points out, and laments). But a greater focus on letting my son nurture his own interests — and encouraging him to just get outside without a specific agenda — might do us both a world of good.

Even if it doesn’t immediately appeal to me as a reflection of my favorite things.

Maybe my job as a parent isn’t about making sure he hits all the milestones before he starts preschool, or ensuring that he loves all the same things I love. Maybe it’s not about giving him a “jump start” over other kids, but letting him develop at his own pace and discover how big and beautiful this world is on his own. Maybe it’s not about being pushy and overbearing and controlling even the imaginative aspect of his existence, but stepping back a little and accepting the fact that he might not be a bookworm.

Am I still going to read to him? Of course! I think everybody benefits from good books, whether or not they identify as an insatiable reader. But everybody can benefit from an increased sense of wonder at the world they live in, too. It’s not an either-or scenario: I don’t have to choose between encouraging trips to the library or trips to the woods, with no overlap and no natural flow.

But neither do I need to shove my son into a box shaped exactly like a miniature version of me.

Yes, I want him to love what his father and I love. A mutual passion for reading was one of the first things that attracted us to each other. We already have a well-established routine of reading together. We look forward to bringing our baby into that family circle and helping his imagination to flourish. But as I organize the picture books in the nursery alphabetically by title — old habits die hard — I’m reminding myself that these books don’t represent the sum of my baby’s personality.

Maybe he’ll be a puddle-jumper, a climber, a runner.

Maybe he’ll be a cloud-counter and weather-watcher.

Maybe he’ll be a budding engineer, with an eye for balance and a penchant for building.

Maybe he’ll find his passion in the kitchen and love nothing more than making good food.

Maybe he’ll be a bookworm.

Whatever he is, he’ll be loved, encouraged, and helped on the way — and I’ll try to remember to take a step back sometimes and just watch.

Even if it means he doesn’t want to hear Horton Hears a Who! for the hundredth time.

1. lol he was late. October.