There are two women out to get me. My husband may or may not be a collaborator.
Under the guise of an academic article, these women (Anna Johnson and Anne Martin) have presented what appears to be actual scientific evidence to prove that I’m a bad mom. In the article - "Order in the House" - they claim that the cleaner your house is, the better reader your child will be. Well ladies, everyone knows that among mothers on the playground, a child’s reading ability is one of the top five indicators of good mothering (the others, in no particular order, are: clean fingernails, matching socks, total inability to participate in tv-tag, and a preference for whole wheat goldfish over regular or rainbow).
With the assertion that home environment is directly correlated to reading ability, these so-called researchers offer a painful send-up of my maternal abilities. You see - and you probably guessed this - as I write this, my house is a total dump. And my toddler still can’t read.
According to the research, reading ability isn’t influenced as much by how much time parents spend reading with their kids, rather it’s more related to how orderly their home is. The Evil-Annes (that’s what I like to call the authors) explain this relationship by positing that "household order taps a more fundamental characteristic of parents or households, such as maternal industriousness, planning ability or conscientiousness, that gives rise to both orderliness and better reading skills in children." That sentence is my primary evidence that my husband may be behind whatever grant funded this ridiculous study. I’m not quite sure what the measures of maternal industriousness, planning ability and conscientiousness are, but I’m fairly confident that all are sorely lacking in this house. Silly things like childrearing and self-preservation are bigger priorities than laundry and routines and an overall atmosphere of order.
This study comes out a bit too late to have a major impact on my home life or my childrearing two of my children can already read. I guess I have their super-orderly classrooms to thank for that. If it turns out that my husband did, as I suspect, spend our tax return money on funding the study, then I have this advice for him: next time hire a cleaning lady and order the Your-Baby-Can-Read system, it would work out better for all involved.
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4 comments:
I wouldn't say I'm an immaculate housekeeper, but I think my home could be considered orderly and tidy, but not freakishly clean. So, I guess it should produce a just-above-average reader? Well, that's what I have so far, so maybe there is something to this... Interesting.
Also, I have an award for you at my blog! Come pick it up!
My house goes according to my moods. When I am feeling powerful, I have a tidy house. When I am feeling chaotic, my house is chaotic.
At 5 years old, Princess is making great strides in learning to read. She has moved beyond the hooked on phonics books and is reading the easy reader style books.
I would say that during this process, my house has been both chaotic and tidy. Perhaps I should take notice of her reading ability day by day and the state of my house? ;)
Oddly enough, I've read this article. The Anne's have a lot of work to do before this research should cause anyone too much concern about the "chaos" in their homes.
Ouch. I guess my kids are never gonna learn to read!
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