A Happy Accident
Written by Jamie Cailteux
I accidentally joined Well-Read Mom before I even knew what it was.
My fifth pregnancy was difficult. I was 36 and my body felt worn out. We were homeschooling for the first time. Stress and emotional roller coasters drove me to my knees, but my varicose leg veins drove me to my couch and my bed. My body needed extra rest and my mind needed good books.
As long as I can remember, I’ve been addicted to reading. My parents love to retell the story of how my kindergarten teacher made me the narrator of the annual class play (3 Little Pigs), a role she usually reserved for herself out of necessity. I didn’t know how to get anywhere in our small town because driving time was reading time. Money my parents spent on sporting event tickets was totally wasted on me since I brought books inside every stadium and ball park. Family vacations meant maxing out on my library card’s book limit (50. Downright oppressive).
Once I became a mother, I struggled to justify time to read as I once had. When I did read, I vacillated between two extremes: sticking to non-fiction books that promised to make me a better mother or Catholic or both, or inhaling fast-paced, plot-driven books. The former was often a chore. The latter was escapism.
But my reading during this pregnancy became something entirely different, with a life of its own. My spirit had grown heavy along with my body. I was, apparently, craving depth and meaning rather than simply entertainment, and I thought I had no muster for self- improvement (though there the joke was on me). I reached for the “Books to Read” note on my phone, which I often added to when I heard a good recommendation but rarely consulted.
The book that kicked off this new chapter (pun intended) was Kristin Lavransdatter. Kristin taught me about motherhood, marriage, and mercy – but not in the self-help way I had been seeking in the past. What a relief it was to encounter a woman who was striving hard to love the Lord and her family but also fell into the same mistakes again and again. Hannah Coulter was a balm to my dopamine-riddled brain. I learned that some books require slow reading. And A Severe Mercy somehow brought the real person of C.S. Lewis off my bookshelves and into my home. The grief (and love!) described shocked me out of my often self-pitying state, reminding me that there are bigger things than my temporal pains. And that beauty might just save the world, or at least our souls.
My children are chips off the old block. I have to repress impatient sighs as they gather stacks of books for a 15-minute car trip to run errands and I shudder to think what our house would look like if they had their own library cards. And I can’t take much direct credit for teaching them to read before kindergarten. We did not pore over phonics cards or do much in the way of formal programs. But children are always watching, aren’t they? They see how adults choose to spend their time, and for us, that is with books. By watching, they learned what is impossible to teach – that books can be friends.
I later found out these titles that were recommended to me had a common denominator. Friends of mine shared their own literary friends with me. And these books quite demanded to be talked about. One friend of mine is an actual librarian and after we had MANY late-night text conversations about Kristin and Hannah and Davy, she let me know that all of the books on my Read shelf lately were Well-Read Mom titles. The organization was calling out to me like a siren. I attended my first meeting and learned how a book can come alive in a whole new way.
I am a bona fide member now and there are no accidents. In the upcoming Year of the Teacher, I know many new friends await within the booklist.
About Jamie Cailteux
Jamie Cailteux is a bride and homeschooling mother living in Kansas City with five other bookworms. Besides literature, she is passionate about her Catholic faith, music, and women’s health. She and her phlegmatic melancholic husband love to discuss the four temperaments.
About Well-Read Mom
In Well-Read Mom, women read more and read well. Our hope is to deepen the awareness of meaning hidden in each woman’s daily life, elevate the cultural conversation, and revitalize reading literature from books. If you would like to have us help you select worthy reading material, we invite you to join and read along with us. We are better together! For information on how to start or join a Well-Read Mom group visit our website wellreadmom.com.
