Summer Reading

It's so simple, really. 

I took the kids that I nanny to the library to sign them up for the summer reading program, thrilled that both have a love of reading and honored to foster the joy of reading. 

The way their program works is the child gets rewarded for time spent reading. To mark this, you get to put different beads onto a necklace. The beads represent units of time, and each bead gets bigger and better with each increment. The 15-minute beads are small and basic; the 4-hour beads are large and animal shaped, etc. 

I took this to mean, for example, you could choose 4, 15-minute beads or 1, 1-hour bead, and that was that. However, the librarian explained to the kids that if they decided they wanted to trade in, say, 4 small beads for the one-hour bead, that was fine. All summer long, they could trade beads as their minds and tastes changed. 

As this trivial information hit me, I reflexively flinched, thinking about how this whole scenario would have gone in my childhood. 

My mother would have asked why I needed to do summer reading. Why did I need all this pomp and circumstance? Couldn't I just read? She'd never cared that I learned to read before starting kindergarten or that in second grade, my teachers and I was reading at a high school level. 

If my mom brought me, she'd sit in the corner nearest to the door and fold her arms and tell me to hurry up. I'd be on my own to figure it out. 

If they needed my mom to fill out a form or something, she'd be pissed if I beckoned her over. If I had asked if I could trade beads in, like a bunch of small ones, for a cat-shaped one, she'd make her typical scoffing sounds and hiss that I didn't need special treatment. It would be a long, silent car ride home, but I'd have a book to keep me company. 

As I came out of my memory, I took comfort in knowing that would never be the reality for these kids. That the adults they're known have been kind and supportive. That cycles had been broken.