The poor daughter
. I hope she doesn't get permanently turned off books because of this incident (whatever the context). I'd be angry with the mother if I didn't pity her more. At least the daughter still has a chance. I can't imagine the stultifying existence that poor woman has had without being able to enjoy a book
. I can't believe such apathy is normal(and hence systemic) - she clearly had a strange childhood. From what I've seen (and I admit that's very limited), people appear to respect education and books quite a bit in the US.
My parents spent an unconscionable amount of money (given our finances when I was a kid) buying me books (grown-up books at that). Toys were in short supply (who cares?) but books ... oh the heaps of books they got me
. We didn't have public libraries like they do in the US (blew me away when I first came here - "you mean I can check out as many books as I want??? For
free??????") but they paid what it took for a membership to what they called a circulating library. *sigh* good times
...
I'm glad they didn't waste my time with the cutesy kiddie stuff
- that way I got the classics out of the way early on and moved on to more amazing stuff like science and math and of course, SF
- amazing how well those can stimulate a curious child. If I'm half as effective as they were at raising a kid in an environment of scholarly awesomeness
, I know I'll be a fabulous parent!