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Inside Picture Books, by Ellen Handler Spitz, M.A.T. '64, BI '97 (Yale University Press, $25) is a book about our first books, reminding us of old friends--Madeline, Ferdinand, Ping, Babar, Max and his wild things, Peter Rabbit. Spitz's purpose is to show "just how, through the shared cultural experience of reading aloud and being read to, adults and young children--in moments of intensely pleasurable rapport--participate in the traditional task of passing on values from one generation to the next." Reading aloud is "a quintessentially relational activity," she writes. "It is a project best undertaken with pleasure, passion, and conviction"--and one best not delayed.
If anyone were to ask me what I consider to be the most important feature of parenting, I would say, without hesitation and without wishing to beg the question, simply, enjoyment --enjoy your children. Delight in them, rejoice with them, have good times together, treasure the days of your life that are spent in their company. Days that--although it may not seem so to harried and often worried young parents--are limited. A great deal follows from this simple thought.
Let me tell a story. During my high school years, I had a boyfriend whose family had emigrated to this country from Norway in the aftermath of World War II. With his beautiful, austere mother I had, at least from my viewpoint, a somewhat tense relationship. Her command of English was somewhat limited, and her interest in me even more so. Nevertheless, one day we had a serious conversation. She spoke words I never forgot, words that have followed me throughout my adult life and occasionally led me. What she said was this: "A mother's children are lent to her for a brief time. Children are not a permanent possession." I can still feel how that idea struck me at age sixteen. It was my first look across the massive divide between being a child and being a parent. In that conversation, Mrs. Annie Aagaard made me try to peer all the way from the land of Moab into the land of Gilead. What I saw seemed terrifying and absolutely unknown. As I have subsequently learned, parents and children are lent to one another. Time is of the essence. This wise, terse message echoes through the years. Its force impels me to write--not with a sense of frantic urgency, but with an awareness that the rabbinic saying also makes explicit: "The day is short; the task is great; the workers are sluggish; the wages are high; and the Master of the house is pressing."