Before kids, I never once thought about myself as a performer. While I may have (definitely did) nail my lines as Narrator #2 in my 6th grade class presentation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," I've never considered myself particularly good at those artistic things. I still don't. I say all of this because I want to make sure you understand that I didn't start "doing voices" because I had some particular inclination towards making it a high quality performance for my kids. As my wife could attest, it was definitely not that. You know what the initial trigger probably was though? The monotony of reading the same book to a toddler for the 41st time and you're not even to the first of the day yet. I'm pretty sure it didn't start out as voices. At first it was just reading literally every single word on all the pages.
Me: "'The Very Hungry Caterpillar.' By Eric Carle. For my sister Christa. 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar.' By Eric Carle. Philomel Books. In the light of the moon..."
I'm not joking. I'd even read the back page part where it said how much it costs in the USA vs Canada. Did my 7 month old enjoy these parts of the book? I don't know, do you know what a 7 month old is thinking? Didn't think so. This turned into eventually reading books that had real quotes in them or books that used the word ROAR a lot and had 6+ pages in a row of just images on them (looking at you "Where the Wild Things Are") and what do you know, the voices started coming out. At first they probably came out as pretty lame roars. Just enough that you knew it was different from my normal dad reading voice. Then you notice something. The book has become just a bit more interesting all of a sudden. Oh and maybe that 7 month old started to do a bit of a belly laugh when that one eagle looking monster gave a particularly high pitched roar. That's certainly an encouragement to keep doing it each time. It's not just about the positive feedback from the voices though. They honestly just come out even if my (then 5 year old, yet still stoic) daughter never comments on the different voices I'm giving Jack and Annie.
The costs nobody warns you about
There are definitely costs to "doing voices" though. First off, those roars. Once you really commit to them you realize your vocal cords weren't really meant to reenact a Frog and a Toad for 50 pages in a row. There are times where I have immediate regret on the voice I chose for a particular character and am immediately thinking about where I can hide this book for at least 2 months so that they will forget about this voice that I did and I can try something much better next time, but also they have perfect memories and I know deep down that I'll be doing this voice for the rest of eternity. A majorly underrated part of doing voices though, is actually remembering how you did them. One night I could be reading as Junie B. Jones and in my head thinking I absolutely am nailing it. Just the right amount of sass in there and I got this little inflection thing I'm doing that makes all her statements land just right. However, the next time I pull out the book I'm just not getting it. What was that thing I did with my voice whenever she said "Wowie wow wow!"? Why does it seem more awkward now? Do my kids realize it? They haven't said anything, but is that just because they are being nice? Over time I've gotten better at this though, and that is something that I think comes with doing the voices a lot. Somehow you actually just get better at it. Maybe a bit more consistent. Maybe a bit more range on the types of voices. Maybe even adding some subtler elements in there like adjusting the speed, doing a bit of an accent, or even introducing some speech impediment.
Goodnight Moon doesn't even have voices in it
I want to say "doing voices" to me actually can mean a lot more than just "doing voices." Take "Goodnight Moon" as an example. The Old Lady never talks, the mouse never squeaks, and honestly how am I supposed to perform anything for "Nobody"? However, when you've read Goodnight Moon as many times as I have (which is probably more times in my life than I've tied my own shoes at this point), you start to build a certain type of style for reading it. Your cadence is always the same, you hit each word in a specific way. "The cow jumping oooooooooooover the moon" while you use your finger to show the path of the cow going over the moon. It's honestly one of the biggest ways I find a book's prose. I'm not some literary expert, but if you can't figure out a nice rhythm on reading it by the 116th time then it probably doesn't have any rhythm. I don't even know what it would feel like to read some of these books without doing it "dad style" at this point.
So why won't I ever be able to stop doing voices? It would be easy to say because my kids demand it. I don't think they do though. Would they miss the voices if I totally stopped doing them and probably make some comment like "Dad why are you reading so boring today?" Sure. But I don't think they'd ever truly not want to read even if it was just all in monotone. I think why I can't stop is actually because I actually really enjoy it now. It's part of the experience of reading aloud to my kids. Picking out good books. Picking out (really) bad books. Doing some funny voices. Doing some really bad english accent voices. Telling them not to climb on the headboard while reading. Saying no 5 times to a night snack while reading but eventually breaking down and saying yes because it's already 8:50pm. It's all part of that routine. I wouldn't want any of it to ever go away. (Ok, actually I wouldn't mind if they stopped asking for a night snack.)