"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."

Technology is raising our children. I won’t let it raise mine. One of my fondest memories of childhood is bringing home a stack of books from the elementary school library, the cardstock record stamped and put to bed in its yellowed back flap. My brother and I would sprawl out on our mother’s quilt, which was a particular treat, given that we were never allowed to enter that private space.  Dr. Seuss. My mother would read Dr. Seuss; her voice would arch with the peaks and valleys necessary to barrel through the tongue twisters. Her face would brighten and darken to sorrow with the night’s story, carrying us on the journeys of Horton, the Lorax, Yertle and the Sneetches. Though Olivia, at only three, doesn’t have the patience to sit through those tales, I’ve recited My Many Colored Days so many times that I can now do it sans book. As I turn the cardboard page, she anticipates how my own voice will change: chipper pink, sullen purple, busy buzzy yellow. Her face furrows into a scowl, growling at the angry black day. The page turns: green. Her fair- almost translucent- eyebrows soften into a gentle smile and her body softens in my lap. The final page comes and she leaps off, scurrying to find another amongst the stacks and stacks of literature strewn around the house. “I wanna read this one!” “Last one, Olivia.” “That’s a great idea, Mom.” Despite the fact the bedtime is steadily approaching, and there are dishes to do and laundry put away, I welcome her back to my lap, two books in hand.

Nowhere in my memory bank do I draw on sentimental images of a plastic book “reading” to me. Nowhere did I use a stylus to tap clusters of letters producing monosyllabic sounds. A book that reads itself cannot interact, cannot emote, cannot connect. It cannot prompt discussion or fuel imagination.  It cannot promise the undivided attentions of someone else. Why, then, is this technology increasingly popular and prevalent?  Paperless books, portable DVD players, videogames for toddlers, cell phone for preschoolers, laptops for kindergarteners, VTechs and LeapFrogs fill our children’s homes and their time.  As a society we have lost the need for, and interest in, human connection.  Are we, as caregivers, too busy to read to our own children?  In this fast paced world, I worry about my future grandchildren.  Will their parents be obsolete in their lives? I certainly hope not, and I intend to give the same gift to my girls that my mother bestowed upon me: her time.