Look, we get it: the iPad is a magical device. It can quiet even the craziest kid. It can take them into a world of learning and exploration that is literally miraculous. Best of all, most of this content is free!
Books on the other hand are not free and they take up so much space. Lugging them around can be a pain. You’re a grown-ass person. Do you really have to read about why dragons love tacos again? Or what Frodo is going to do with that stupid ring? And read it with the excited tone of a voice-over actor?
Yes. The answer is yes. Your house and your life must be filled with books. Good ones. Silly ones. Annoying ones. Used ones. New ones. Reading is part of the job. “A house without books is like a room without windows,” Horace Mann once said. “No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books, if he has the means to buy them.”
It may be easier to sit them in front of a television set, but we’re not in this because it’s easy. We want to be great. We want them to be great. And that means reading. That means spending money on books. That means displaying them prominently in your house—even if it violates your minimalistic tendencies. It means taking them to libraries and independent book stores and not wincing at the $26.99 price tag of a 17 page book with 100 words in it.
Reading is fundamental and great dads are fundamentalists about it.
P.S. This was originally sent on Sep 4 2019. Sign up today for the Daily Dad’s email and get our popular 11 page eBook, “20 Things Great Dads Do Everyday”.
