I wonder if there are still parents out there who read to their children. Do fathers still sit with their kids at night and read to them? Do mothers sit with their kids in the evening and tell them stories? Or have those type of parents gone extinct altogether?
Both my parents are good story-tellers in their own right. My mom was not big on reading, claiming that reading puts her to sleep immediately, so all her stories were from her imagination. Whatever type of stories she starts with, be it poor little baby elephants that got lost in a parking lot or a little girl that swam into a lake, it always took on a weird espionage turn. The kind of turns that made me and my brother look at each other going 'Eh?'. Always, her characters turned into spies of the government one way or the other and they always ended up being kidnapped and she would end her stories with conclusions like: The moral is... Never talk back to your mother because Mothers are Wise. Mommy Logic For The Win. I come from The Secret Seven, Nancy Drew and The Naughtiest Girl generation and even I thought her twists and mysteries were fucked-out weird. That was why I love that imagination of hers and what she had contributed to my childhood so much.
My dad, on the other hand was almost never seen sober until he gave up drinking when I was about 15. He was not those abusive-drunk type. I have yet to meet another drunk who was as adorable, sweet-natured, soft-spoken and so fond of cuddles as he was. It was when he got reacquainted with God and turned sober that it all went to hell, in my opinion.
He would wake my 6-year-old self up and insisted on telling me a bedtime story at 3 in the morning. He'd pull out Beauty and The Beast and I could see that it was Beauty and The Beast and I would be sat on his lap with the book before us. His forefinger would underline the words he was reading and yet the tale that came out of his mouth was fuck all about Beauty and The Beast. I remembered being angry at first because it was the wrong story and he would cover my mouth with the other hand, laughed and said, 'Shh, don't interrupt me, the story is getting good' and read to me a story that was a horrendously hilarious mash-up of The Little Mermaid and Aladdin. Of course my dad was stupid silly to me back then but his mash-up skills were Amazeballs. There is nothing like having a gigglefit with a drunk at 4 am and trying to argue logic with him at the same time.
It did not matter to me then that my parents did not read to me the exact story or that the story made no fucking sense whatsoever and it does not matter to me now. It mattered to me that they actually sat there with me when they had a many other things to do but yet they chose to sit with me at whatever hours and fill my brain with images of these weird tales of fictitious characters and the logic is that there is no logic. Take whatever images I have planted in your head and run away with your imagination.
I get Jaz to read to me on nights I miss my parents horribly and it was always when he was about to doze off his stories are always 'Once upon a time there was a gibbon. That gibbon was so very tired after his long day and this other gibbon wanted him to tell her a story. The end.'
Yeah, our children will be so fucking lucky.
