The Baal Haggadah gives words, but you, dear father, have to give the words their feeling, and that’s what your child will remember
There is a fundamental difference between the way fathers read stories to their young children and the way that mothers do.
The father will hold the open book and read a few words on the page, then, reasoning that the child is not yet old enough to read, he might skip a line or two or seven. The father will quickly gloss over this omission by pointing to the picture and saying some vague words about it, like, “See the car? It’s a big car, right? It goes vroom vroom,” and then quickly turning the page, feeling virtuous and fatherly and utterly convinced that the child does not chap.
Mothers, on the other hand, will read the words on the page. Every word on every page. Even if the child’s eyes wander, and even if the child seems distracted, the mother will conscientiously push through, reasoning that the story itself will likely be better understood by stringing together the words the author chose to tell it.
Studies show that children develop trust issues later in life because of the way their fathers read them books. I should also mention that the data compiled for this study is based primarily on personal fathering experience and the guilty expression on the faces of several friends I shared the he’arah with.
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