Posted on 05/05/2015 11:00:34 AM PDT by wtd
Reading to children at bedtime: ABC questions value of time-honoured practice
THE ABC has questioned whether parents should read to their children before bedtime, claiming it could give your kids an “unfair advantage” over less fortunate children.
“Is having a loving family an unfair advantage?” asks a story on the ABC’s website.
“Should parents snuggling up for one last story before lights out be even a little concerned about the advantage they might be conferring?”
The story was followed by a broadcast on the ABC’s Radio National that also tackled the apparently divisive issue of bedtime reading.
“Evidence shows that the difference between those who get bedtime stories and those who don’t — the difference in their life chances — is bigger than the difference between those who get elite private schooling and those that don’t,” British academic Adam Swift told ABC presenter Joe Gelonesi.
Gelonesi responded online: “This devilish twist of evidence surely leads to a further conclusion that perhaps — in the interests of levelling the playing field — bedtime stories should also be restricted.”
Contacted by The Daily Telegraph, Gelonesi said the bedtime stories angle was highlighted by the ABC “as a way of getting attention”.
Asked if it might be just as easy to level the playing field by encouraging other parents to read bedtime stories, Gelonesi said: “We didn’t discuss that.”
Swift said parents should be mindful of the advantage provided by bedtime reading.
“I don’t think parents reading their children bedtime stories should constantly have in their minds the way that they are unfairly disadvantaging other people’s children, but I think they should have that thought occasionally,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailytelegraph.com.au ...
Plato famously wanted to abolish the family and put children into care of the state. Some still think the traditional family has a lot to answer for, but some plausible arguments remain in favour of it. Joe Gelonesi meets a philosopher with a rescue plan very much in tune with the times.
Who really cares what ABC thinks?
It’s insanity that this question is even asked.
If you're gonna go all dictator over this shouldn't the prudent response be to make bed time stories mandatory? This would solves the problem in a much more productive fashion. Damn, libs can get anything right.
I am Guilty! I read ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’ as well as Dennis McKiernan’s ‘The Iron Tower’ among others as they grew up.
So now you can’t give your kids “advantages” even if you are willing and able to? Sounds like we’re on the road to Harrison Bergeron with loud alarms going off every couple of minutes at bedtime to prevent parents from reading to the kids.
Oh Moses smell the roses. Not to be mean, but I do care more about my kids than others and want them to have every advantage that they can get in life. If you want your kids to have the same then read to them and do all the other things parents can do to nurture excellence.
Liberalism cannot coexist with sane and civilized society. We really need to split as a people. Us, the Aussies, Japan, some of Europe. Divide the land willingly now or fight later.
Parents should be VERY aware of the benefits of reading to their children, and do it at every opportunity.
And the morons who want to narrow the gap between the abilities of the underclass and the middle class, by crippling the abilities of middle-class kids, should be taken out back and whipped.
Ignorance *progressing* toward supreme ignorance.
Sometimes liberals are beyond parody.
Read to my God daughter most every night for a couple of years, until she could pretty much read them on her own.
National Honor Society.
Podiatric surgeon.
Governor’s Board of Podiatric Medicine.
> “Is having a loving family an unfair advantage?” asks a story on the ABC’s website.
Yes. If you have gay parents more interested in molesting you than reading you a bedtime story.
Once again, in the interests of “leveling the playing field” the Libs resort to the lowest common denominator – don’t encourage reading to all children at an early age, but suppress those who take the initiative to better the lives of their kids. Why not just let them veg in a corner without ANY stimulation, that’ll work ...
Whatever happened to “Reading Is Fundamental” ??
Only liberals, the same kind of people that whine about keeping score in childrens sports....................until their kid is winning. Sixteen years after my daughter stopped playing, my 7 year old grandson is playing and the whining from liberals over scorekeeping is unbelievable! And damn us for taking advantage, both my daughter and we read to and with him not just at bedtime but all the time, life is a competition and you have to win to live.
If they would make bedtime stories mandatory, then taxpayers would have to pay for some travelling social workers who would go around and read bedtime stories to all of the “disadvantaged” children.
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