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Never Too Busy for Books

How Motherhood Changes Reading Habits
By Catherine K. Enders Carlton

Everything changes when a woman adjusts to pregnancy and then motherhood, even her reading habits. Many moms who were avid readers have found or made time to read for fun, while others have adapted their reading choices to include books on childrearing and shorter pieces.

Choosy Moms
Amy Schindler of New York City found that becoming a mom made her much pickier in her leisure reading. “I am, and was always, [an avid reader],” says Schindler, who is a graduate student and teacher at Columbia University with an almost 2-year-old daughter. “Before I was pregnant, and even while I was pregnant, I would read any type of fiction because I had lots of time. Now I have to be much more selective,” she says. “So if I pick up a book, and it doesn’t grab me within the first two pages, I won’t keep reading. I don’t have that much spare time to waste on a book I don’t love.”

Jeanette Hicks of Lockport, Ill., is thinking about starting a book club with moms-only members. She says their reading commitments and tendencies are different from those of other women. A book club for moms can also be a way to meet new people, form friendships and have company, she adds.

“As a mom … it can be really isolating. It would be good to have something to do besides Baby,” says Hicks, who has a daughter who is almost 1. “You are reading and talking about things other than children. A lot of people I meet now only talk about babies … It’s hard to get friendship beyond that point.”

Hicks belonged to a book club in New York before she moved to Illinois. The group she belonged to would rotate the role of choosing a book and hosting the meetings at their home. “It was great, because it really became more like a support group than a literary thing,” she says “It was a ‘girls’ night out.’”

Hicks says she tries to arrange her trips back to New York to coincide with a book club meeting, so she can visit with the other members. “It’s really funny, but I do,” she says.

Hicks, who preferred novels, says another benefit of book clubs was the diverse topics and styles of books she read. “I was pretty set in my ways,” she says. “And then being in a book club expanded my horizons because someone else was choosing the book.”

Schindler says that her friends will often share books, like an informal book club. “A lot of times we will trade books,” she says. “If there is one book that one of us thinks is particularly good, we’ll share. Nothing formalized, but if one book is fantastic, it goes around.”

Reading Methods
When Hicks first moved to the Chicago area, she commuted an hour to work. “I listened constantly to books on tape,” she says. “I mostly do in the car, not so much in the house, unless I’m at a really good point, and when I get home, I put the tape in.” When asked if she listens to books while she does household chores or while she performs other tasks, she says no, but “it’s a pretty good idea.” Hicks has yet to commit to starting a book club because “time is of the essence,” (and her family will move again in a year).

Like Schindler, Hicks says she has a “different attention span,” tends to be selective in her reading and leans toward “at-a-glance” articles or stories. “Things like Reader's Digest articles are really appealing, because it will be a chapter from a book that has come out, and you get a flavor if you want to read the book or not,” she says. “It would be a lot more difficult to read a really meaty book right now. It would be hard to get into it. I think that’s why I tend to read more articles and shorter books, because it just feels like I’ll definitely be able to finish it. I don’t like to drag out a book.”

Megan Chen of McKinney, Texas, says she used to read a romance novel or mystery novel every two months before pregnancy. And now as a mother of two daughters, ages 1 and 2, she finds even less time to read for fun.

“I haven’t bought too many books lately,” says Chen, who works in insurance claims. “I am more interested in magazines because of the short stories and information I can read in a short amount of time. I like articles that will take less than 10 minutes to read.”

She also found that she steered toward books about pregnancy and childbirth while pregnant and books about childrearing once her daughters were born. She liked books that broke down month-by-month what her daughter should weigh, what games to play and how much she should eat. Chen noted, however, that she found she did the majority of her reading when she was breastfeeding her children. “In fact that was a motivation for me to continue to breastfeed,” she says.

Customize Your Approach
Alicia Slook of Coronado, Calif., might be a perfect example of an exception to the rule. Slook has continued her reading and increased some of her goals despite being a mother to three children, who are all under the age of 6.

“I am, and always have been, an avid reader,” she says. “I don’t have as much time to dedicate to reading as I did before kids, but I still read at least one book a week.”

Slook is a member of a book club that meets monthly. Despite moving six times, she has been in a book club everywhere she has lived for the past seven years. Slook and her husband also have their own mini book club.

“Also, in 2000, when publishing houses came out with all of those millennium lists, my husband and I made a commitment to read the 100 best English language novels of the 20th century,” she says. And she’s nearly half done. “I’ve finished 49!” she says.

Slook enjoys the fantasy of reading as well as how reading keeps her informed and “makes me feel that I am challenging myself to be smarter.” While she can no longer read for “several hours a night,” she limits herself to an hour before bed. “Reading makes it possible to escape, to experience whole other worlds and lives," she says. "Whenever I have a choice for free time, I choose reading. My friends are working out/exercising in all their spare time, but I’d rather be a little flabby but well read.”

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About the Author: Catherine K. Enders Carlton is a mother and
freelance writer.

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