In the second edition of What to Expect in the First Year (1994a), which offered advice for raising the newborn to one year child, under the heading “reading to baby” the reader encounters the five most common pieces of advice for supporting early literacy development we have come across thus far: “Be a model and let your child see you reading,” “Start a juvenile [book] collection,” “Learn to read parent-style,” “Make reading a habit,” and “Keep the library open,” which involved ensuring the baby had access to board books at all times (Eisenberg, Murkoff & Hathaway, 1994a, pp. 289–292).

The authors suggested that because of the seduction of television, it was important to begin to read to babies as early as possible, so they could “catch the book worm” early and hence choose to read rather than watch TV as they grew older. In advising mothers to “read to yourself” the authors suggest that babies needed to see their mothers reading if they were going to value it themselves. They suggested, “Though it’s hard for parents of young children to find a spare moment for a quiet read, it’s worth the effort” (1994, p. 289). This effort would indeed seem effortless if literacy was taken up as an embodied practice, natural to being a mother and to the everyday work of mothering. For example, “read a few pages from a propped up book while you nurse or give your baby a bottle, read a book in his room while he plays, keep a book on your nightstand for reading before you fall asleep and for showing your baby, “this is mommy’s book’” (Eisenberg, et al., 1994, p. 289).

While collecting and reading this advice, I was nursing a newborn and thought the idea of propping up the book while feeding worth a try. Not surprisingly, it proved impossible — the book would fall over, I had no free hands to turn the page, and every time my baby moved I would lose my place. This underscored the ideal images of mothering embedded in this literacy advice and the ways that these suggested reading practices are perhaps more about the performance of “good” mothering than on the place of reading as a meaning-making activity in everyday life.

As in Leach’s advice, Eisenberg, Murkoff and Hathaway (1994a) described exactly how to share the book with the baby, providing detailed advice designed to help mothers carry out reading much as would professional educators in a pre-school or school setting. Mothers were seen as “co-learners” with their babies, willing to improve and perfect their skills. Also important to this domestic literacy work was to demonstrate an appropriate maternal tone and inflection:

If you passed second-grade reading, you know how to pick up a volume of Mother Goose and read it aloud. But there’s more to reading to a baby. Tone and inflection are important; read slowly, with a lilting sing-song and exaggerated emphasis on the right places. Stop at each page to emphasize salient points. (Eisenberg, Murkoff & Hathaway, 1994a, p. 290)