This is such a coincidence. I had this conversation about parental reading habits with my brother last week.

In my family, I'm seen as the 'intellectual' one. I went to a grammar school, I love to read, I love nuanced conceptual discussion, I studied an academic subject at university, etc etc. This never did me much good, but it's who I am.

Anyway: my brother has been pretty much the complete opposite to me for our whole lives. He never read (he's dyslexic and developed an inferiority complex about it), never thought deeply about much, was pretty much an anti-intellectual type. Recently though, he's been reading avidly and due to cartain events in his life he's become really intellectually curious and thoughtful. We've been getting on really well and having an amazing time in each other's company. The other day he was asking me why I thought he had developed this set of interests so late in life.

I mentioned how, as the eldest, I was looked after and cared for much more attentively for the first few years of my life than he or my other siblings were. Like, I remember my mum reading the entirety of the Hobbit and then Lord of the Rings trilogy to me when I was around 7-8 just because she loved the books and had the time to do so. I was read to every night and strongly encouraged to read by myself too.

When my brother came to a similar age, my parents were swamped with looking after two other toddlers and dealing with increased financial pressures. He was almost never read to or cared for intellectually like I was. As a result, he just naturally developed a different perspective, competences and a different set of interests to me.

It's really startling how big an impact our parenting has on our lives.