I am the mother of five boys. This comment always elicits some sort of response from people, one of the most common being, "Oh, you have a built-in basketball team!" Yeah, that's true. The only problem is that none of my boys really like to play basketball. Or frankly are really that into organized sports at all.
Sure, they love to be active: riding bikes, swimming, trampoline time, running, all sorts of indoor craziness, skiing looks to be an interest for a few of them, but organized sports: not so much.
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, it makes me a little sad. I have great memories of going to school or church games to support one or more of my friends. On the other hand, I hear my friends bemoan the time spent travelling to practices and spent at games for months on end (don't get me wrong: they love to support their kids, but depending on the sport and age of child, it seems to get a little life-consuming at times). We have had our kids in a few organized sports, but they never have really lasting interest. Oh well.
Now, if there was a sport of reading, my boys would be all over that. Although, maybe not, because the fun of reading is how absolutely captivating and completely non-competitive reading a good book can be.
Our boys have reading "homework," where they are required (at least the ones in elementary and middle school) to read at least 20 minutes. Are you kidding me? I have to make them stop reading and go to sleep at night! Sometimes my husband and I forget to go down and ask them to put their books down and go to sleep, and we check on them an hour and a half later before we go to bed and they are still reading. Ever notice how time becomes an absolute non-issue when you are immersed in a book? I can't be hard on them for it (even though we all suffer the next day because they were up late :0), because I've gotten sucked into many a book as well.
So, bottom line: even though the current social environment dictates that boys are supposed to play sports and ours really have no interest in them, if I had to choose between having my boys love sports or love reading, I would choose exactly what I have.
I'm so grateful for kids who love to read!
Note: above is my 11-year-old reading 'Rapunzel's Revenge' by Shannon and Dean Hale. It's a graphic novel (comic book, basically) and a fun Old West retelling of the Rapunzel story--boy, is she a feisy heroine! She uses her hair as a lasso and whip! Cool!
3 comments:
I am still waiting for any of my kids to show signs of ENJOYING reading. There has to be ONE of them!
Wow! Kids who love to read and a mom who loves to write. A match made in heaven! Have you done any writing lately? A wise man gave me some great advice once. He said, "Set a goal. Then do at least one thing toward that goal every day, even if it is only 10 or 15 minutes." Sounds like you have some great boys there Andrea. Thanks for congratulating my on my first book. You ROCK!
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