Encouraging Our Readers

This morning Ella informed me that Selena Gomez was engaged to Justin Bieber, but they broke up while on a trip to Mexico.

"Why?" I asked.

"They got in a fight."

Apparently, Selena wasn't happy about something (mercifully, Ella spared me the lurid details of this particular situation) and she departed from their trip early, leaving her erstwhile fiance to languish alone in the Mexican sunshine. Poor J Beebs.

"How do you know all this? How do you know it's true?"

"Uh, Dad," she said, obviously irritated at my stupidity, "I read it in a magazine? The April Tiger Beat?"

Oh.

Our tendency toward voyeurism seems to start at a young age. Ella loves to read magazines that tell her all about the comings and goings of the celebrities she loves, like Taylor Swift and One Direction. At least she's reading something, regardless of whether it ends up being true. Not that Tanya and I have to worry.

Since she learned how to read in kindergarten, Ella has lived on the "bookworm" end of the reading spectrum. She devours books of all kinds, from novels to reference books. She's discovered the joys of gaining information and losing herself in the exciting world of fiction.

With a writer father and a mother who polishes off two to three books a month, I guess Ella's hunger for reading should not come as a surprise. Sometimes, I admit, I bristle at the notion of raising a gossip-starved child who will spend her days tethered to a tablet, smartphone or other electronic device waiting for the latest news on who's marrying whom and which celebrity was caught doing what in front of the paparazzi. But I guess that's where Tanya and I come into the picture.

There is a lot of recent information pointing to the harm of exposing our children to excessive electronic media, especially when they're young. (Check out the "mediatrician" from Boston. Interesting stuff...and scary.) We limit screen time and try to encourage one-on-one, personal contact, especially at meal and bed times. And this far, it seems to have worked. Ella and her sister, Sophia, are both very compassionate, attentive, intelligent, eloquent girls who value time with Mom and Dad more than they value a screen. If that's the case, I'll gladly accept regular updates on Justin Bieber's love life.