Here Is What Reading To My Child Has Done To My Brain | Defector

"As the parent of an 18-month-old, I've been reading a lot lately. That is, if your definition of reading includes thumbing through sheets of increasingly careworn and spittle-soaked cardboard, reciting the 30 or 40 words that compose each tale from memory, and pausing innumerable times to acknowledge any shape that may evoke the holiest of trinities: ball, bug, star. At first-when I had a mere 10 months of experience in this arena-I believed that reading to my child would be straightforward, if a little repetitive."

"Little did I realize I would be jeopardizing my own sanity, because the more time you spend with these texts, the more you feel drawn into their deep wells of chaos. They may help my kid gently drift off, but the confounding logic I encounter in these books keeps me up at night. Let me initiate you into some of the mysteries that have come to plague me."

A parent of an 18-month-old repeatedly reads short, worn board books, memorizing thirty to forty words and pausing to identify simple shapes like ball, bug, star. Familiarity with these texts breeds not only repetition but a growing sense of bafflement at their internal logic. Many children’s variations, such as countless Wheels on the Bus iterations, layer absurd events and unexplained recurring images. Illustrations sometimes include unnoticed or unaddressed characters, like repeatedly depicted caterpillars who receive no narrative acknowledgment. The mismatch between playful intent for toddlers and baffling narrative gaps unsettles adult readers and provokes lingering questions.

Read at Defector