The Superpower of Infinite Application

Easter and Australis: for my son and his mother

Last week, we released our latest reading research which found that 82% of New Zealand parents and caregivers are reading to their young children at least once a week.

Around a third reported their children under 10 years of age had a particular book they liked to be read repeatedly, while 55% said they wished they had more time to read to their kids.

The survey also revealed that while most parents do read with their children, 39% of respondents who had children under 10 made time for reading with them every day, while 82% read with their children at least once a week and 7% said they ‘never’ did, and as children get older, the incidence of adults reading with them drops.

We asked Te Awhi Rito Reading Ambassador Ben Brown for his words of encouragement. Reflecting on his early parenting years, he writes:

To me, it’s a no brainer. Read to your kids every chance you get. From Day One if you’re allowed to. Though between you and me, I reckon you’ll be okay if you just plonk yourself down beside wherever your newborn happens to be settled and wing it for the first wee while.

But first, I’m talking to you now, Dad, Day One belongs to Mum, eh. Better check with her first or, depending on your situation, maybe the midwife or doctor. But if it’s all good, go tell your kid a story, Dad.

Old school style.

I did exactly that for a few weeks. Just the kōrero.

I mean, how could I not have something to say, to express, to relate in such a context. All the family legends and some of the secrets too, for that matter. The handed down stories. The don’t-tell-mum stories. The dumb stuff I did when I was a kid. I showed my son the neat little puncture scars of my first dog bite.

‘Don’t swing on a pig dog’s ears, son.’

Possibly my first solid piece of fatherly advice. My boy must’ve been about one week old when I told him that. All those experts telling me he doesn’t understand a word of it. My boy’s twenty-five now. Software developer. Not a dog bite scar on him anywhere. BOOM!

I don’t care what science says about whether my son is aware or not in those first few days. That’s all just bla bla bla. Awareness has bugger all to do with it at this point. I know my baby has no idea I’m there in any real sense. My baby has no idea about anything at all in those first days and weeks of his life. So what? That’s not what starting at the beginning is about.

I’m laying the groundwork. I’m starting a routine that is going to give my son the best possible start - I hope - in a world where the utility of language is ubiquitous and words define the limits of understanding. This is where you start to show your child the magic of our greatest ever invention.

Words Words Words - Daddy-oh

Beetles Buttons Birds - Daddy-oh

Words Words Words Words Words

Yeah…

If we’re fortunate enough to be born healthy, with everything where it should be, doing pretty much what it’s meant to be doing at the beginning of it all, then we’ve just entered the only non-linguistic period in our life. We have no language. We have no processes as yet to engage with any part of what language actually is. There are bits of us still growing that will be engaged in the deliberate making of sounds soon enough. But for now, our vocalisations and utterances mean nothing, linguistically. We gurgle and blow raspberries because we don’t know what our tongue is. We are as dumb as a rock. But we won’t be forever.

At some point, certainly before I’m aware of it - he will begin to recognise my voice, my intonations, the lazy way I drag some vowels. His little pattern recognition forming brain, over time, and not much time either, will soon identify me by my incessant prattle and chatter as a barrage of words descend upon him at regular intervals.

He will, I hope, discern kindness and humour and sense that he is safe, and this is where he belongs. As we interact and engage with each other more directly he will know instinctively that these collections of sounds and expressions and elaborate expansive gestures are somehow intended for him. His brain will automatically try and work out what it all means because that’s what it’s meant to do in these circumstances. That is why - in my opinion - you should start telling stories or reading aloud to your kids as soon as you can.

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My son - my first child - has five names if you remove the hyphen from the double-barrelled surname bestowed upon him by his mother and I. But Brown hyphens well in my opinion, especially placed after a Taylor of such grace, poise and stoic resolve. Amazingly to me, some people have quite strong opinions on the matter of how many names might be deemed appropriate to babies not of their own. To which I would say what I cannot say here. But I figure you get the gist.

His birth, the shared experience of mother and child left me exhausted and in awe. I will elaborate not much further except to say that Easter Sunday in Motueka became Easter Monday in Nelson Hospital the following evening and even now, twenty-five years on, I find it almost impossible to comprehend the human capacity to endure; in the slender form of this glorious woman giving birth for the first time, in the fragile shape of this infant son, exhausted, battered, limp and bruised by the process. Today he looks me in the eye and thinks I’m a bit of a twit from time to time. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I will tell you only that our son was assisted into the world by a team of midwives and doctors, and he wouldn’t have made it without them. Nor would his mother, in all likelihood. He would spend the first week of his life in the neonatal unit hooked up to machines that go ‘bing.’ I wanted to tell him a story that night, but it wasn’t to be.

‘Tomorrow night perhaps if he’s settled,’ said the midwives on duty. That first night, he was way past settled. He was utterly exhausted. Out like a light.

The midwives on duty the second night let me tell him a story. He was as I’d left him the night before, as I’d seen him on and off through the day. But I wanted to tell him - I needed to tell him so many things. I would begin with the story of his names.

‘You have five names,’ I told him. ‘The name that we will call you, by which the world will know you as - that name is for you. It has a meaning in one of the ancient languages of some of your ancestors from both sides of your lineage. It is the name of a King and he ran with the wolves. And your second name, son - this is my name. It comes from my great grandfather, born in South Australia in the late 1800s, down through my father’s brother to me.

But I am a son of Tainui as well, and Waikato flows in our veins through my mother’s and your Kuia’s heart. You have a river and a mountain and three marae that will always be yours. And your third name comes from your great grandfather by way of your mother. He was a farmer and a flyer and a visionary man who pioneered new enterprise leading other men to succeed. He was a gentleman of the plateaus of Otago.

And your last name, son - this comes from your mother and I. You are what holds them together and this binds her father’s name to you. With it will come his qualities. Your name is your whakapapa my son. It places you among these people that are from everywhere in the world. They belong to you and you to them, and this is one of your superpowers.

Taku tama, welcome to the world.

After that, I told him about his birthday, in every detail down to the drama of his arrival and the coincidence of Easter. I described to him the will and strength and character I witnessed in his mother. Not once did she cry out in pain. It’s true my son. Not once. But the joy, the utter joy and sheer exhaustion when she held you.

I told him about the doctor who hurried home to try and catch the end of a televised footy match - the Blues vs the Sharks - but we shouldn’t begrudge him that. The man did a fantastic job. I mentioned his boof head father who got himself sprung snorting nitrous oxide gas - but really, it was only a little bit. Every story needs a clown.

And as I talked, my son slept on and it didn’t matter a jot that he hadn’t heard a thing nor even knew if I was there. Because one day he will. He will hear. And then he’ll know. And then - he’ll understand what it means. In his heart he’ll understand. Without explanation.

Every night after that first night of stories - his second day born - until he was a teenager, I or his mother would sit with him, and later when his sister came with her five names of similar origin, we’d sit with her as well.

And all we would do is tell stories, read books aloud, read books together, imagine silliness and greatness, pull stupid faces, make up new words and nonsense, laugh at nothing, laugh at each other, laugh at everything. Share time. Time is not as rare and inflexible as you think. The universe is full of it.

Spend time with your children telling stories. Please. Read to them. Show them where and why and who they are with the magic and majesty of words. Why on earth wouldn’t you?

- Author Ben Brown is the inaugural Te Awhi Rito Reading Ambassador.