At this point in my life, I spend around two hours every day getting my children to sleep for bedtimes and naps. Yes, perhaps there is a quicker way to do it, but for good or ill I have chosen my path. I will refrain from calculating the amount of time I spend preparing meals, cleaning up meals, or completing laundry and the like, lest I grow resentful and let that lie creep in that my time is my own to do with what I please.
I will also be the first to admit that I am not a particularly busy stay-at-home mom. I do not drive my kids to swim lessons every week or have a job on the side (except for an insignificant writing gig); I do not even have a dog! While objectively I am probably on the less-busy end of the spectrum of stay-home parents, I still tend to feel plenty busy, and, in a way, I am. There is always more to be done, and every day I must say no to something I could do.
However, one thing I have consciously tried not to say no to is reading books. Last year, I read more books than I had read in a single year since I became married. I was a bit surprised because last year I also set no reading goals for myself: no book list, no quota, no habit-tracker. I would like to share with you the three motivating factors that have helped me keep reading a priority, even when the mythic busyness threatens to consume all other loves: reading feeds my mind, allows me to gain perspective on my life, and brings me joy.
Read to feed your mind.
Moms are often reminded to keep a check on their physical health. Growing and raising babies is very physically taxing work, which is why expecting mothers are often chided about their diets in prenatal appointments—or, at the least, encouraged to pop a few vitamins. There has also been an emphasis in the past several years on maternal mental health—by which we mostly mean absence of symptoms of dis-ease, like anxiety or depression.
Our bodily health is, of course, important. And often, our mental health follows suit with the health of our bodies. But mental health is not merely the absence of disease; a mind free of anxiety and depression may nonetheless be weak and malnourished.[1] And with what does one refresh a malnourished mind? Educator Charlotte Mason posited that “the mind is capable of dealing with only one kind of food; it lives, grows and is nourished upon ideas only; mere information is to it as a meal of sawdust to the body.”[2]
Parenting is filled with information. We deal in the details: nap schedules, evening routines, menu plans, shopping lists, and to-dos. Tasks such as these exercise the mind, but they do not feed the mind. What the mind needs for sustenance is access to ideas; an idea is a “live thing of the mind” that “‘strikes,’ ‘seizes,’ ‘catches hold of,’ ‘impresses’ us and at last, if it be big enough, ‘possesses’ us.”[3] Ideas “draw [us] towards things honest, lovely and of good report [Phil. 4:8].”[4] In light of that last point from Mason, feeding our minds with the food of good ideas is not merely practical but also biblical (“think about these things”).
Of course, worthy ideas can come from many places. A walk through nature, a Sunday sermon, and a piece of music or podcast can all provide food for the mind, but all of these are a bit difficult to pack in your purse and pull out for ten minutes in the dentist’s waiting room! Quality books have long been the most reliable source of mind-nourishing ideas.
When the information over-load of parenting threatens to make you “snap,” you might need a nap, or a drink of water (or coffee), or a quick walk, but you might just need a little of that food for your mind that has been sitting on your bedside table.
Read to gain perspective.
Oh, how the four walls of my house can tighten as the week crawls by—especially in January! The little battles of potty training or teaching obedience can begin to take up enough space in the imagination to be a veritable World War III right there in my living room. When that begins to happen, it is high time to find some minutes for a good book—particularly a piece of fiction or very interesting biography.
There is nothing like the incredible story of another person’s life—real or imagined—to shake you out of a moment of self-pity or hopelessness. Frodo showed mercy to Gollum. Betsie ten Boom thanked God for the lice. The March girls gave away their Christmas breakfast. Reading helps me realize I can overcome whatever small struggle has me wrapped up in my narrow “today.”
Read for pleasure.
Finally, reading is just good fun! Parenting brings many changes to your life—it is not as easy or practical to go out in the evenings and see a concert or visit a museum; you find your precious time is not as well spent in watching the shows you used to or enjoying a great album from start to finish. But books are a cheap, quiet, portable pleasure that fit many different seasons of parenting. And I have only just begun to experience the pleasure of reading a favorite book, such as Winnie the Pooh, to your child; it is absolutely joyous to laugh alongside your three-year-old as you rediscover a childhood friend together. Of course, reading such books as an adult is always beneficial and enjoyable too, as Matthew Bracey showed in our recent recommended books post.
It can be tempting (especially if “Read More” is your New Year’s resolution) to take your reading too seriously. You have only so many years to live, you can read only so many books during that time, and the list of must-reads grows longer and longer each quarter. The danger here is in turning your reading into a chore; yes, there are Great Books that deserve our attention; yes, it is worthwhile to stretch yourself by reading more deeply and widely. But, as Alan Jacobs pleads in his book, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction,
for heaven’s sake, don’t turn reading into the intellectual equivalent of eating organic greens, or (shifting the metaphor slightly) some fearfully disciplined appointment with an elliptical trainer of the mind in which you count words or pages the way some people fix their attention on the “calories burned” readout—some assiduous and taxing exercise that allows you to look back on your conquest of Middlemarch with grim satisfaction. How depressing.[5]
If you find no pleasure in your reading, I encourage you to try a different book! So-called “children’s literature” is a great place to learn to enjoy reading again. I suggest The Princess and the Goblin.
Cultivating “Mother Culture.”
In the monthly magazine edited by Charlotte Mason, The Parents’ Review, an anonymous contributor, “A,” writes a word of exhortation to mothers to keep growing: “There is no sadder sight in life than a mother, who has so used herself up in her children’s childhood, that she has nothing to give them in their youth.”[6] While the entire job of our children during their years at home is to learn and develop, it is entirely possible for us mothers to neglect learning and developing ourselves—thus, when our little ones are not so little any more, we find they have outgrown us; we do not have anything of significance to add to their lives, since our whole life was wrapped up in their life. “[I]n [a woman’s] efforts to be ideal wife, mother, and mistress, she forgets that she is herself. Then it is, in fact, that she stops growing.”[7]
A’s suggested solution to this predicament is to keep up a habit of daily reading.
The wisest woman I ever knew–the best wife, the best mother, the best mistress, the best friend—told me once, when I asked her how, with her weak health and many calls upon her time, she managed to read so much, “I always keep three books going—a stiff book, a moderately easy book, and a novel, and I always take up the one I feel fit for!” That is the secret; always have something “going” to grow by.[8]
Growth is not ever easy, but it is essential for the good of ourselves and our children (not to mention our friends, churches, and communities) that we continue to feed our minds with excellent ideas, gain new perspective on our own lives by experiencing the lives of others, and find joy in the journey. The habit of reading is an excellent way to accomplish all three.
[1] By mind here, I mean the spiritual or immaterial mind, not merely the physical brain.
[2] Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education (1923; repr., Living Books Press, 2017), 105.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid, 107.
[5] Alan Jacobs, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 17.
[6] “Mother Culture.” The Parents’ Review 3, no. 2 (1892/93): 92–95. Accessed at https://www.amblesideonline.org/PR/PR03p092MotherCulture.shtml.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
December 4, 2023
An insightful article, very well-written and full of truth. Much-needed, not only by young mothers, but by all of us who strive to be our best in order to better serve.
December 13, 2023
Thank you for your readership, Mrs. Donna! Your kind words and lived example are making a difference.