I am embarrassed about my number.

I don't like what it suggests about me. But I'm willing to confess it publicly, in hopes that I will make better choices moving forward.

Here it is: The details are blurry now, but I'm fairly certain I read fewer than 10 books last year.

This puts me below the average for women, who read 14 books in the previous 12 months, according to a 2014 Pew Research Center study. It also puts me below the average for college-educated people, who read 17. The median number of books read annually by American adults is far lower: about five, meaning half of us are reading fewer than five books in a year. But for someone who grew up a bookworm -- consuming at least 50 books a year for most of my youth -- this under-10 realization is shameful.

Oddly, I'm reading all the time: blog posts, pithy tweets, essays on my phone while I wait in lines. But it's byte-sized reading. It's qualitatively different from the immersive, sustained experience of reading a novel or a long work of nonfiction.

I'm not the only book lover who has strayed.

Nicole Thompson of O'Fallon, Missouri, started a book club about six years ago. When the club started, most people would read the selected book, she said, but that gradually changed.

"Over the years, only a couple of people would read the book," Thompson said. One month, not one person finished it.

Like her, the other members are time-starved working mothers. So about six months ago, she allowed the group to pick articles or blog posts instead of full-length novels. This option made it easier to get together during the hectic months of November and December.

"We're not opposed to doing books" in the club, she said. "It's just that people have less time."

Parents consistently say they want to raise readers. Trends show that young boys and older teens are reading less today than they did before smartphones and digital distractions monopolized leisure time, and that's cause for worry. The number of American children who say they love reading books for fun has dropped by nearly 10 percent in the last four years, according to Scholastic's 2015 Kids and Family Reading Report.

It's not that young people don't enjoy reading. It's that the other stuff they enjoy creates incredibly tough competition. Children have near-constant access to media that's either more fun or easier to mindlessly, intermittently consume. The percent of children who play games or apps on an electronic device at least five days a week has risen from a third in 2010 to half of respondents in 2014, according to the Scholastic report.

Even as a middle-aged adult, I can relate.

When I look at posts on Medium, the online publishing platform, I glance at the "reading time" metric posted right above the headline. I've bookmarked long-form essays that end up in the TL;DR (too long; didn't read) digital wastebasket. And I have large stacks of unread books next to my bed, on my desk and in our study room. It's the paradox of this Information Age that I am reading 10 to 12 hours a day and still finishing far fewer books than I did a decade ago.

Would I be happy if my children read as few books as I do currently? Of course not.

I want them to be the voracious book reader I was years ago. I want them to get lost for days in a story, to inhabit richly drawn worlds in their imaginations, to take a journey with a writer and discover new ideas along the way.

There's a socio-economic and educational link between those who read books frequently and those who don't. Those with college and graduate degrees, and those in higher income brackets, report reading the greatest number of books per year. But if our attention spans have shortened or our interests have shifted, our love of books won't translate to future generations.

"We are all capable of reading good books," Thompson said. She doesn't think her book club's evolution to blogs and articles speaks to a change in attention span.

I want to prove her correct by reviving my own book habit.

At this point, it's not even about setting an example for my children.

It's about reconnecting with a part of myself that I miss.

In America, there are plenty of families who embrace the cultural side of religion even if they aren't convinced of the God part. Some children will participate in Easter egg hunts but have never attended a church service. Others will grow up to describe themselves as secular Jews, lapsed Catholics or non-practicing Muslims.

The Pew Research Center finds that one of the most well-documented shifts over the past decade has been the rising share of people who are religiously unaffiliated: from 16 percent in 2007 to 23 percent in 2014. There are more children growing up as "nones" -- with no particular religion -- than ever before.

Of course, a parent can raise moral, empathetic children without religious beliefs. But the majority of Americans still identify with a religious faith.

For a child in such a household, there are significant spiritual milestones, such as a confirmation, a bar mitzvah -- or my own children's recent Ameen, which marked the completion of their recitation of the Quran in Arabic.

This milestone moment made me reconsider the reasons my husband and I chose to raise our children in a religious tradition, and what we hope they will take from it. It's especially challenging when one's religion is as vilified and misunderstood as Islam currently is in America.

Across faiths, people turn to their belief systems for guidance, hope, comfort, ritual, a sense of community and acceptance, and salvation. Religion feeds the desire to be better. It's a way to acknowledge that there are unknowns. Science can't explain certain mysteries of the universe and human existence. From the beginning of time, humans have told stories to fill in the gaps.

When they become parents, the faithful offer their children a foundation of religious beliefs, which we hope will teach them moral responsibility and discipline that comes from adhering to a system of values.

In our home, our faith has a particular emphasis on justice and one's own actions. A key focus is on empathy. The major rituals in Islam, such as fasting and giving to charity, are explained around this idea of empathizing with your fellow human. The practice of daily prayers increases mindfulness and gratitude. Research shows daily meditation or prayer lowers stress and improves mood. It gives the worshipper an opportunity to reflect on her thankfulness, which is a key to happiness.

Simultaneously, this daily conversation with a higher power gives us a chance to humble ourselves, to ask for forgiveness and give voice to our struggles and pain.

Prayer, in fact, can be healing.

If life is a search for meaning, a religious tradition offers a guidebook. I don't want my children to turn to their faith for easy answers, but to struggle with questions about the nature of good and evil, fate and free will, reason and faith. I studied the world's great religions in college and have attended services of several other religious traditions. We are not threatened by the religious beliefs of others, nor would we raise our children to be. The bedrock separation of church and state in our country allows both to flourish.

I've found most Americans are curious and willing to ask frank questions. I've been asked any number of questions about Islam by adults: Why would a woman who is a feminist subscribe to a faith that seems oppressive to women? What do Muslims think about Jews? What would you say about this video (insert link to Islamophobic propaganda)?

Raised and educated in the faith, I can answer for my own experience and theological interpretation -- but obviously not for a billion others.

Parents should be aware that you cannot force an individual to believe in something as unseen or unknowable as the divine. But you can try to instill a feeling in a child: the sense that there is something greater in the universe they carry inside of them. It is the force of love and good and beauty and hope in the world, and it comes with responsibilities and duties.

We can look to our religious traditions to see examples of what it means to live a life of kindness, compassion, honesty and generosity, with a commitment to justice.

Seeing people do good can inspire us to do the same.

This doesn't mean that we should whitewash the role of religion in history or current events. Ideologies can be used for violent or political aims. Wars and crimes have been committed in the name of various gods. Religious institutions have used dogma to control people's lives and women's bodies.

But there are countless moments of grace inspired by the same belief in a divine creator. I'm reminded of that when my son tells me that he's given a classmate a prize he earned at school because his friend didn't have the same gadget as everyone else. I think about when my daughter makes a point to ask for a second pack of gum or another piece of candy at the store, so that she has one to give her brother.

Those everyday moments are just as important as the milestones.

The responsibilities we give our children can help them discover talents and abilities they may not otherwise discover.

Ariel Ruff was the go-to child when anything broke in the house -- not because she was the likely culprit, but the most likely to fix it. Ruff's father was a doctor who died when she was 3. Her mother is a professor at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, and legally blind. Ruff, now 26, would fix the dishwasher or washing machine when they malfunctioned.

"I grew up getting satisfaction from watching things work ... something that you've put together," she said. A bright and motivated student, she graduated high school early and started college, expecting to become a nurse. Into her second year, she decided she wanted to pursue her passion.

"I've always wanted to be a plumber since I was little," she said. When Ruff told her mother she wanted to leave nursing school, her mother encouraged her to make a plan and pursue the career she wanted.

Ruff has innate mechanical ability and loves water. She researched her options and enrolled in a trade school, which would count toward the required four-year apprenticeship required to become a journeyman.

"Plumbing is a puzzle," Ruff explained. You have to know codes and legalities. It takes intelligence and mechanical ability. "I have respect for that," she said. She graduated summa cum laude from Ranken Technical College and is a senior apprentice with Roto-Rooter.

Roto-Rooter recently named her one of its top national plumbers based on sales volume, number of jobs and performance ratings. She is one of 11 female plumbers in the company, which employs 2,000 plumbers nationwide.

"The fact that she's also young, petite and female means that she defies three stereotypes about the plumbing trade to exemplify what is possible," said Paul Abrams, Roto-Rooter corporate director of public relations. The company noted that there is a shortage of plumbers in the growing and lucrative field. They have been using Ruff in a recruiting video to reach women who may not consider it a viable career path.

Women face significant challenges, such as harassment and sexism, in the trade professions. They represent less than 1 percent of the country's 573,000 pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The median salary is near $50,000 annually.

Ariel says she typically hears some kind of comment about her gender at every new job she goes to, but when customers say something, her male co-workers stand up for her.

"It makes me want to be a better plumber," she said. She gets a lot of repeat customers, which suggests she's changed a few minds.

"I've had to face adversity," she said. Some customers will say right away that they are skeptical she can do the work. "I appreciate every single person who gives me a chance to prove assumptions about women in the trades wrong," she said.

Do people ever notice that she works around water and shares a name with a Disney princess mermaid? "I get that all the time." � "Customers will call their daughters down to meet me," she said. Ruff introduces herself to her customers' young daughters and asks if they've seen her movies. "It's loosely based on the story of my life," she tells them.

She still has to finish her apprenticeship, and plans to take the test to get her journeyman's license later this year.

She's also a single mom of a 7-year-old daughter, who tells her friends that her mom can fix anything broken in their homes. A few months ago, her school invited students to dress as their future job. Her daughter wore her mom's Roto-Rooter uniform and safety goggles. She was still wearing them when Ruff picked her up.

"How was your day?" Ruff asked.

"I had a job in Granite City," her daughter replied, still in character. "Let me tell you about it."

Ruff's nontraditional profession may encourage other women to pursue such fields. It's already shown her daughter that anything is possible.