Ten ways that reading can save your (parenting) sanity
March 9, 2008 12:40 pm Why reading?Sure, reading is fun. It is a great time-waster on holidays and when you are waiting for a plane. But is it really that important? Definitely. Here a five ways that reading can keep you sane:
1. Just finish something!
Ever feel like life is getting on top of you, and you never seem to get anything done? I am currently a stay at home Mum, and this is one of those jobs where tasks are only noticed if they aren’t done. Laundry, cleaning, cooking, discipline and cuddling are things that are never complete! But a book can be finished. Cover closed, placed back on the shelf. Sigh. Amazing.
What’s more, the feeling of achievement can be “hacked”. If my week is hectic, I can choose a novella, and be guaranteed that I can get through it at some stage. If I have a moderate amount of time, then I can choose a weightier novel and get that extra sense of achievement when it is complete. Don’t under-estimate this one. Reading may be the only thing to keep you from going postal.
2. Meet some grown ups
Ever had one of those weeks where all you seem to do is talk to preeschoolers?
“Mummy, Whatchoo doin’?”
“Mummy, I like ice cream”
“Mummy, I wish I was born a fairy so I could fly everywhere”
Time reading a book is a tonic. There are grown ups between those covers. Maybe their lives are exciting, or dull, but they have complex emotional and intellectual responses!
I have met some interesting people this year; a Nazi Fugitive and a dead body (Different Seasons ), a trapeze artist (Ascension) and a failing fisherman (The Old Man and the Sea), to name a few.
3. Turn off the idiot-box
Television is designed to get you coming back, and daytime TV is the worst. The shows may never end, and are littered with cliffhangers. Lifestyle TV is all about making you feel superior. Whatever the form of manipulation, it is there, and most of us can sense it. I hate being manipulated. It feels sort of like a fast-food-hangover for the brain. Let yourself relax into a story, and the manipulation seeps away.
4. Tune out
Whatever the soundtrack to your life, there are times when you prefer not to listen to it. When I am trying to get my (Hoot! Hoot!) nightowl son to sleep, I have to let him mumble and grumble quite a bit. It is hard to listen to and easy to convince myself that he is just going to get worked up. Reading distracts me at those times when I need to turn his volume down. It doesn’t make me supermum, but it helps me to mute the volume when I need to. Sometimes it needs to be a very good book, though. Don’t try this with textbooks. Complete failure.
5. How to have an adult conversation
Nobody seems to be as interested as you like in the 17 things you tried to get your daughter to try to do a wee on the potty. I can edit to only include the funny things, but my day ends up pretty short, and I run out of conversation about half an hour after my husband, L, walks through the door. And heaven forbid I should try to talk to someone who doesn’t have kids. What do you do when your work is uninteresting to others and you have no other interests? Read a non-fiction book. Even some fiction books work. Social commentary books are particularly good, like The Big Picture or interesting biographies, such as The Man who only loved Numbers.
6. Explore a new world
Sometimes the world you live in gets too much. Same old, same old. Escape to a place you have never been to before, or that you miss. A book is almost the parents-of-preschoolers minibreak. In the last twelve months, I have traveled to Ireland (The Gathering), the moon (Earthlight), a small french town (Chocolat) and communist China (Waiting).
7. Get some answers
Look, it’s not fascinating, but there are times where you really feel like you don’t know what you are doing. Having a couple of good books on hand reassures you that you are not mad, and not being unreasonable. At the moment, my panic bibles are Baby Love and Kid Wrangling.
8. Justify your anger
Sometimes, life is just hard. I feel myself grumbling about the same things over and over again. It makes me pretty nasty when combined with poor sleep or a bad head cold. Reading a book which someone serious has written about how hard your life is can help. Reading The Mask of Motherhood and Baby Hunger helped me with this stuff recently.
9. Get recharged by beauty.
Some literature is just beautiful, and makes the world seem fresh. My recents have been The Pearl, The Old Man and the Sea, The Great Gatsby and the more modern, but still beautiful Different Seasons.
10. Laugh out loud
My gorgeous kids do give me a chance to laugh, sometimes at them, sometimes at myself. Like the funny unexpected things they do, novels can make you laugh despite yourself, and you brain just works a little better.
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian and Wrong About Japan surprised me with laughter.
Related posts:
- Five ways to save the world by reading books
- Six ways support your reading habit without wasting money
- Biographies of Childrens’ Presenters: 9 ways to see the other side of the TV
- Reading to avoid Days of Our Lives
- Reading can help manage depression.
