Andrew Daddo: Why books are my go-to babysitter.

They beat TV any day.

We had babysitters as kids.

I’ve Google-stalked the ones I can remember and either there’s something wrong with my computer, or they’ve all got a block on anything Daddo.

As I remember it, we were good kids.  “Robust,” is how mum described us.  And, “spirited.”  I don’t know if our babysitters would remember us quite that way…

Now I’ve got kids of my own. Angels, they are. Absolute angels. Butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, and that’s not just because they prefer margarine. Honestly, they’re happy and healthy and we think it’s because they’re pretty good at looking after themselves – something we put down to training.

As little kids, we gave them words. Specifically, words in books. Books to play with, books to draw in, books to open and close and sometimes chew – nourishing books, but for the mind, not necessarily the tummy.  From time to time the books were even read.

There were the books they could get into traditionally with pages to turn, and later, those new fandangled ebooks – it didn’t matter. If ribs are the delivery system for barbecue sauce, books were our delivery system for stories of worlds nearby and a long way away. We just loved the idea of our kids knowing there’s more to life than what happens on the TV.

Madness? Of course, but there was some method in there as well. And it wasn’t related to the memory of most of my childhood babysitters hiding in dark rooms sucking their thumbs after one of us kids had tried to blow up a brother or sister.

The theory went something like this – if you can teach a kid to entertain themselves with something that didn’t always require batteries or an internet connection, the fun would last a lot longer. Pretty simple, eh?  And a bit old fashioned, but then, this was over a decade ago when things like iPad and smartphones were swimming in the minds of their creators, not an actual reality.

But I still feel it holds true today, with a little technological tweaking.

To get into a book, all you have to do is open it. To get into an ebook, all you have to do is turn it on. Every time the page turns, something different happens. Colours change, characters arrive and depart. Things happen. And I think that’s where the book culture comes in and why we found it so beneficial for our mob.  Books have to be the greatest invention ever – you can control the speed of the game and the story. Get behind in a video game and it’s pretty hard to catch up, right?

There are the sensible reasons to getting your children into a positive relationship with all kinds of books. Logical stuff like better literacy skills, better communication skills, improved language and speech; but they’re so worthy, aren’t they?  What about the other benefits?  Like being funny and entertaining and opening up that magnificent beast, known as the imagination?

Having our kids dive into another world and experience things as they’ve never seen them before is fantastic. It’s better than TV, because nothing can rival the pictures inside a kid’s head.

Then there are the selfish reasons to let books be babysitters. They don’t make noise or sing inane songs at you over and over and over again.  (Would somebody please wake up Jeff?)  They don’t run out of batteries. Traditional books do get broken, but you only need sticky tape to get them working again. They’re transportable and you can borrow books from cool places called libraries.  They nourish the mind in ways very few things can.

And, maybe best of all, a good book will be a great friend for your child.  It’ll always keep them company, it’ll always work, and it will never, ever run out on them.

What books do your children read?

Here are a few of our favourite ‘babysitters’:

Want more? Try these:

‘Here’s what happened when I wrote a tell-all book about my friends’.

This Taylor Swift parody video might make you want to borrow a library book.