tell your mother to read

My mother is an English teacher at a high school in California and is retiring at the end of this year--I feel bad for all the incoming freshmen for missing out. Anywho, so my mom  being a lover of books, asks me every semester to send her my list of readings that I acquire from all the different English and other classes I am taking that semester. And so when we were talking in class about what books to tell our mothers to read, I giggled to myself because my mom literally reads them all, and has or is going to. The great thing about this is that my mom has her masters in History and Education, not English and she really doesn't know much about the Theorists and background of the authors, but my father has a double masters in Math and English and he knows all the Theorists and backgrounds and all that jazz that we talk about, but would rather not read any of the books on the list I send. He picks around sometimes and if I demand him to read a book he usually does, but you know it's an interesting thought to think that one day more than likely I'll be my father and not my mother. Because I have never enjoyed reading that much, and I have never really been completely obsessed with the subject of Literature. I love it and I think that I have learned a great amount of knowledge from the classes that I have taken. But honestly I can see myself in fifty years from now, getting a list from my kids telling me of books to read, and me staring off into space remembering all the books I had read and thinking, 'na I'd rather watch a hummingbird war.' Yeah a terrifying thought for a soon to be English graduate, but hey I still enjoy what I do in class and the interactions that are made through literature, I just don't think I can be as devoted to the subject as my mother, who never tried nor wanted to be an English guru.

In fact she told me to read The Alchemist a few years back, as well as To the Lighthouse and it's funny my dad told me to read, I'm not joking, Three Novels by Samuel Beckett. What a great couple of parents I got, I love the dark and the light because of them. And how would they know they were preparing me for my final semester of undergraduate work in a state over 1000 miles away from them and a place they will never visit unless it is in the warm season or for my graduation?! Gotta love to power of parenting. 

~L.