Children don’t understand what it means for your brain to be tired, so they ask complicated questions at bedtime, or when you are trying to daydream while driving. What is the next number in this series? Why is it important to be civilized? This is the point in the test at which I want to start bubbling in C for everything. Or is it B? I think it’s just important that you fill in all the bubbles, or was it one bubble per row? Will I be expected to show my work?

Usually I cool off at some point and give them the correct answers—both are logarithms—then remind them of the child’s mandate to read everyday, even better if you read something besides the names of Minecraft video clips on Youtube. My own parents must have felt just as strongly about reading, which is why they set limits by having only one TV and no TV reception. The house was full of books, and while my friends who had cable were out to dinner or on vacation with their families, I read several of them.

My dad must have noticed that I didn’t pack Die Odyssee when I left for college—I had discovered it was a translation, not a vampire book—and I think that’s when he started sending me clippings from The New York Times to encourage me to keep up my vocabulary and critical thinking skills. In fairness to UVA, Physics for Non-Majors, e.g., might have provided either of these, but I didn’t sink my teeth into it as I might have if I hadn’t had mono so much. After school I tested out a non-linear series of jobs and then got married, and he continued to send the clippings. I wonder if they still come now and then–I rarely open my paper mail. Come to think of it, when I was in my twenties, there were times I was in Las Vegas or Cuba or living with a mouse and a catalog model and a Swedish recluse in Gramercy and generally difficult to pin down. I might have missed some letters then too. I bet that’s when my dad sent the epic letter containing all his “life advice.” If I had read it, I might have had a better answer for my son to his question why be civilized? As it is, it sounds like what he has learned from me is to regret eating chocolate, a behavior I hope I have neither modeled nor promoted.

Every so often, I try to read one book to the two children. Recently it has been Rebecca. More than a page about the rose bushes of Manderley is enough to convince my daughter she wants to read something current, in solitude. Her brother falls asleep. When my brain is tired from making up answers all day, this works pretty well.