These represent the many “moments in the practice of the discourse of mothering” (Griffith & Smith, 2005) that shaped this study. As much as I wanted to step outside mothering discourses and see my domestic literacy work from a critical or ironic perspective, as a white middle-class Canadian mother my children’s schooling is a big part of my life, and it’s getting bigger. Every day I need to remember to bring something from home that starts with “the letter of the day” for my son’s daycare. This involves careful negotiation when my son insists that “Hockey Stick” does start with “B” and “Race Car” does start with “F” and are thus fair game for show and tell. As this study concludes, the work of making British Columbia, where I live, “the best educated, most literate jurisdiction on the continent” (Government of British Columbia, 2005) has become my work. One of the key pillars for achieving the vision of this “most literature jurisdiction” is to provide parents with detailed advice for supporting children to read and write at home. This “support” blends into direct teaching, as evidenced in these advice texts. One of the first pieces of advice in Reading for Families (Achieve BC 2005a) brings this study, and my domestic literacy work, full circle as it asks me to: “Play I Spy with your child, spying words that begin with consonants like “m” or “p.” Use furniture, signs, labels and grocery items — any words that you come across in your daily travels together” (p. 1). The Victorian perspective of literacy as an embodied practice resonates across the century as advice in this booklet asks parents to, “encourage your children to spell, read and eat their words, using alphabet pasta or cereal” (AchieveBC, 2005b, p. 2).

Even as I question the motivations of this advice, and the vague and rather meaningless goal of living in the “most literate jurisdiction in North America,” on a personal level I am invested in my children’s education. In a political and social environment that consistently reduces the resources available to them in school and daycare as it calls upon my domestic literacy work in the home, I will likely find myself initiating a game of Alphabet I Spy with my son in our next shopping trip. And this time I may be tempted to be more insistent that we at least cover off a few consonants.