"They don't have time to read"

I was told yesterday.

I had suggested to a local mother that I might loan a book to one of her children and that was the response I received. Her children "don't have time to read". 

Her three children are involved in eleven different sporting activities between them. They also have music lessons and Scouts, chess and their church youth group. Their lives seem to be one hectic rush from school to one activity after another.  During school holidays their grandparents also seem to be taking them to "cricket school" or "football school" or on some "educational" venture or other. At the end of such times both grandparents and children look exhausted and ready to go back to school. 

No, they probably do not have "time to read". They are nice, polite and well mannered children - but they are also rather dull. They don't have that "spark" about them. It shows. They do well enough at all their activities but they don't excel at any of them. The idea of "Jack of all trades and master of none" comes to mind. 

"We want them to experience as much as possible," their mother once told me, "They love it of course or we wouldn't do it."

Really? These are children who are growing up with no idea of how to entertain themselves. Their lives are so fully organised for them they do not need to think about what happens next or how they might do something for themselves. They are still being taken to and from school and the fourteen year old is old enough to do that himself. 

I am waiting for one of them to rebel.

The idea that children don't have time to read however seems to be even more widely spread. It is a relief to me when T... turns up at the door with the books he has borrowed and helps himself to more. His parents have restricted out of school activities.  It may be partly to do with the fact that they have no available grandparents to provide the taxi service but it is also because their mother, a paediatrician, believes they need "time to play, time to be themselves and develop those skills they need for the rest of their lives".  Ah, thank you!

I had occasion to look for something in the children's section of the library yesterday. Despite my complaints I must admit the section is well used but the books in there have changed from my childhood. Am I really mistaken in remembering lengthy books - often hard covers in blue library binding? They seem to have been replaced with thin, insubstantial paperbacks which are even "marketed" as "quick reads".  

I suppose a "quick read" is better than "no read" but I would still like to hear the mother of those boys say, "They love to read. Thank goodness they have time to do it."