I do not read to my children enough. Scarcely anything except the Riot Act. And in the face of today's read-to-your-kids-or-else PR machine, that's one baby step away from failing to feed them.

I always assumed that I would instinctively read to my kids, since I spent so much of my childhood reading. I grew up before the invention of the Playdate. My older siblings were avid readers, so reading, not playing, was what I did, obsessively.

I remember, during my teen years, hearing some church speaker quote a little poem that I've since seen on library walls. “Something something, you may have (lots of money, etc.)/ But richer than I you can never be,/ I had a mother who read to me .”

That, I knew, would be me. Be it ever so humble, my future home would be a place where children were read to. (To which children were read? Whereunto children were read? Anyway.) You could have knocked me over if you'd shown me what a kid-reading flop I'd turn out to be.

Fast-forward in time to the births of my children. By this time the emphasis on reading to kids had reached a fever pitch, and strange devices that you strapped to your pregnant belly which amplified the sound of your reading voice were selling like crazy. If your child was not fed a steady diet of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom while floating in the womb-womb, its SAT scores would teeter. The best you could hope for Jimmy would be a career in penal servitude.

We read to our first son. Mind-numbingly repetitive little counting books that we bought somewhere for 99 cents. He wouldn't know the difference, right? He demanded them over, and over, and over and over and over and over again until we wanted to tear them into bits and stomp on them. I've since learned that great children's literature is not really for the kids, who can gain language skills by watching “One Life To Live.” It's to protect the parents from going berserk.

Then we had two kids, and then three, and suddenly we were stuck forever in Whoville. I appreciate Seuss's genius, but we were in a literary rut. Reading to kids had lost its joy. And still the demand was for Dr. Seuss's ABC, over and over and over and over and over and over again. (Sing along with me: “Big A, little a, what begins with A? Aunt Annie's alligator! A, A, A. Big B, little b, what begins with B? Barber, baby, bubbles, and a bumblebee!” Don't think I had to check my sources. I know this. )

I confess: we got to the point where we hid their favorite books. But I know I'm not the only one.

By the time they entered school I'd given up on their intellectual stimulation. School, in my eyes, was all about “You take them for six hours,” not, “Prepare them for Harvard.”

But right at this stage enthusiastic teachers entered the scene with their Parents as Reading Partners propaganda, copied on Pepto-pink paper and sent home with a stack of Reading Logs. Now it's my job to read to them daily, record what was read and by whom, and sign my name to it. I am answerable to a kindergarten teacher, who periodically sends home snippy notes on teddy-bear-sprinkled paper saying, “Mrs. Berry , we haven't seen your son's Reading Log in a while!”

Why wasn't I read my rights on the first day of school? Can these signed reading logs be used against me in court?

Last year my oldest son's teacher sent home, with the second trimester report cards, a list of the number of books read thus far that year by each child, with my child's number circled. The numbers were blessedly anonymous, but there was our circle, for our little superachiever, second from the bottom. 29 books in the school year, with a cluster of little show-offs posting 239, 202, 187, etc. at the top, and the rest weighing in at a healthy hundred-plus (approximately one per day). Our son had 29, and someone else, whose parents are probably both in jail, had 27.

Does this go on his Permanent Record?

The ironic thing is that our sons can all read very well. I swear we did nothing to facilitate it, but their oddball little brains had all grasped reading independently before finishing preschool. Our kids ought to be the best readers in their school, but they don't want to .

To illustrate: two years ago my husband read the complete Winnie the Pooh stories to the boys, every night before bed, and by imitating the voices from the Disney movie, he was able to hold their attention pretty well. They were smart enough to see that it postponed bedtime by a few minutes each night, and played along.

So, inspired by his Pooh success, I tried to read them Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Sons 1 and 3 vanished completely, but son #2 paid a smidge of attention, so we slogged our way through it. Recently I thought I'd try Farmer Boy , another book in the same series. At least it's about a boy.

So when I offer reading time, son #2 feigns interest. He likes the attention. He says, “Okay, Mom, you read, and I'll be right here listening while I play Game Boy.”

When I explain that that is not the deal, and that he must focus, listen, and look at the pictures, he agrees and flops down on the bed next to me. A few paragraphs later, the soul of politeness, he says:

“Excuse me, Mom? Can you just hold on a sec? I want to solve this hidden picture puzzle on the cover of Highlights for Children .”

Again I remind him, lovingly, that this is our reading time, and that he can look at his magazine later, and to please pay attention.

The reading continues. Little Almanzo is just at the exciting point of training his calves that “Gee” means right and “Haw” means left when my son shakes my shoulder.

“Mom! Mom! Stop! Do you smell something ?”

No, I don't.

“I do! It's . . . it's coming from China .”

From China .

“Did you know that right now it's morning in China ?”

Is it?

“I think I'm smelling their breakfast all the way from China .”

I am at a loss.

“Well, keep reading.”

Certainly, dear son.

Poor attending skills, weak listening comprehension, insufficient titles read, no reading logs. I often imagine the school district is gathering evidence, building a case for a Neglect charge against me. Even though I'm guilty, I think I would not be convicted by a jury of my peers.

© 2005, Julianna Berry.