My soon to be ex-husband however abhors reading. He has been forced to read all his life and he resents it. He knows how to read, or he is an excellent faker. When the kids were younger this wasn't really an issue. Listening to him read in a flat monotone voice wasn't pleasant but he would read to the kids. Then they started being interested in longer books with more than one or two lines of words on a page and he would find excuses to not read to them.
He would look for an excuse every night to "punish" the kids by taking away story time. There were stupid infractions that were harmless. Things that needed no or little discipline. It would make me so mad. Reading is so important that I don't think it should ever be taken away from a child. We never saw eye to eye about it.
We used to each read a story to the kids every night, not anymore. Now I read exclusively to the kids every night. This isn't an issue because I love to read. But still there are times when he needs to step up and read to the children. Sometimes they want daddy to read. Sometimes I am tired or I don't feel good. Last night was one of those nights. I was tired and didn't feel well. My daughter came to me to read to her and I just couldn't do it. If I can't read you know I am not feeling well. I asked her to ask daddy to read to her. One night of reading in six months, I thought that he could handle it. I was wrong.
I closed my eyes and went to sleep only to be woken up by my daughter. She was crying and tears were streaming down her face. She was so upset, Daddy only read half of the book to her. The book was Fancy Nancy, Poet Extraordinaire! by Jane O'Connor and Robin Preiss Glasser. It is only 30 pages long, on almost every page is a huge drawing that takes up almost the whole page. It is written for children so the words are large print and easy to read. Of course some of the words are fancy, it is Fancy Nancy of course. He wouldn't finish and has upset with me when I asked him about it. He said that he did read to her, what did t matter if he didn't finish the book?
Reading with our children is so important, it develops literacy skills and helps them succeed in school. Even when they are school age they still should be read to because often their listening skills are at a level above their reading skills. If you read to them at their listening skills this help them develop and improve their reading skills. It should never be taken away from a child.
Tonight I read an extra book to them, hopefully that makes up for last night. Now I am waiting to make my dinner, it is 11:27 at night. He insists on eating his dinner before he goes to the store to buy the green peppers for my italian sausage. See, I still am not allowed to have any money so I am unable to buy groceries. I have to wait for him to buy the food. He tries to control me by making me rely on him for everything. The closer I get to walking out that door the more control he takes away from me. He tells me that I will never succeed on my own. He wants me fail and fall apart completely.
It has the opposite effect on me. The more he takes away from me, the harder I work to build scaffolding to help me succeed away from him. I have a substitute teaching job, and I will get more jobs I am sure. Any extra money I can hoard away I do. I am making connections and pushing myself to not fall back into a ball of nothing. I have lost so much of myself in this marriage, but I am getting it all back.
I will keep reading to my children as long as I can. My son has problems reading, maybe it is the Asperger's but I suspect it might be his father's attitude about reading that has contributed to some of his reading problems. So many of the tears at story time have had something to do with daddy that I have to be concerned about it. Soon I hope we will have no more story time tears.
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