“I want another one, Pop-Poppy,” my grandson, Eli Benson, tells me.
He’s not asking for another piece of candy or chewing gum.
He wants another bedtime story.
As soon as I tell one, he automatically requests “one more.”
My daughter, Madi, son-in-law, John, and grandson, Eli, moved in with Lori—or to the grandkids, Gigi, — and me for a couple of months while they were finding another house. During their stay, Madi gave birth to our granddaughter, Emersyn Grace. While Madi and John worked on getting the baby to sleep, which for this baby wasn’t much of a problem, I saw an opportunity for some extra time with Eli, and voila: bedtime stories.
The practice of telling bedtime stories took me back to the days when Mary and Dave were little children. I rarely read them stories; I preferred to make up my own.
With Mary, it was The Adventures of Agapan, which lasted several years. The star character was Agapan, the name being a sort of transliteration of the Greek word for “love.” The stories were about the escapades of Agapan, a little girl in Greece, during the first century, A.D. Mary still recalls episodes to this day.
For Dave, it was Davey Whitlock, King of (wherever we lived, but initially, 4 East Park Drive), loosely patterned after Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier.
I’m not at all against the reading of bedtime stories. Doing so can have positive effects on a child: it can increase a child’s vocabulary; establish a good habit: reading; help with the analytical skill of reflecting on a text; and provide quality time with a parent.
I suppose it may also occur with the reading of stories, but I’ve observed that creating your own story, my preference, can stimulate creativity with the child.
For instance, Eli involves himself in the stories, because I tailor them specifically to him. I’ve dubbed the series: The Incredible Adventures of Eli Benson Walls. He will invariably offer his suggestions about what he wants in the stories: “I want three mean guys, no four…make it five bad men, and I want to chase them all away.”
He doesn’t know it, but Eli is telling me something about his fears and desires when he interjects his ideas for the next story.
If you decide to try and make up your stories, make sure you have a hero or heroine of some kind. For Mary, it was Agapan, who would get into some type of trouble and work her way out of it. I would like to think those stories gave Mary confidence, at an early age, that she could be resourceful in challenging situations.
For Dave (and Eli) I made them the hero. I think author, John Eldredge, is spot on in his analysis of the male identity: “Deep in his heart, every man longs for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue” (Wild at Heart). I have no way of proving it, but I think there is something in most males’ DNA that makes them want to conquer something and achieve some sort of hero status. I further believe stories we tell our children contribute, for better or worse, to their identities, regardless of their sex or social circumstances.
That’s why I’m cautious, about making Eli the violent hero, which he, as a four-year-old, sometimes wants to be. There are other ways to defeat “the mean men,” than by always “shooting them all dead.” I’ve learned that it actually requires more creativity to find some way to “overcome evil with good.”
One more suggestion on telling your own story. Bring it to closure, or at least suspend the tale long enough to “settle down.” That holds true whether you’re reading a book or telling your own story. Remember it’s a bedtime story. I actually recall several times when Mary had to wake me up to finish my own story.
The Incredible Stories of Eli Benson Walls makes me want to resurrect The Agapan Stories, and Davey Whitlock, King of 4 East Park Drive.
But wouldn’t you know it? Just when I was getting back into the rhythm of telling Eli his bedtime stories, our little family found a new house and moved out.
Now, what’s a story teller to do?
Lori, how about a story?