Getting Real With Veronica Ibarra
One of the many skills we develop as mothers is the extraordinary ability to hear our children call for us, and know by the sound that they are in need. This acutely sensitive ability to attune to our children is not necessarily limited to mothers, but often times fathers aren’t as attuned because they attune to other things, like the myriad of sounds made by the car. I suspect that many fathers also over rely on a mother’s ability to attune to their children, trusting that if something were really wrong then he would be alerted.
This hypothesis was unintentionally tested recently as my son began calling me from somewhere within our house. At first I wasn’t sure if he was calling me as “mommy” is his catch all for when he wants something, which includes addressing his father who was also in the house at the time. His first call had that note of hey-pay-attention, which he usually does use to address his father.
The second call for mommy came with a hitch in the cry, that I-am-not-happy transitioning into I-don’t-like-this. I got up from writing to go investigate, figuring I’d find him fussing at one of the cats or an uncooperative toy. I poked my head in every open room—he is only 2 after all, and has yet to master the opening of doors. I poked my head into my husband’s open office to see him typing away at his computer, but no sign of our son.
I heard the cry for mommy again, muffled, but now with that hint of rising panic, the one that begins my reciprocal panic. I urgently start opening doors to the rooms that were closed, and still no 2 year old. Meanwhile, daddy is typing away. I start calling for my son, who starts the repeated mommy call, which I am able to follow and trace him to the closet in his sister’s room. With much relief he latches on to me with a death grip of gratitude for rescuing him from the stuffed animals and nightlight he had managed to close in with him.
I poke back into my husband’s office to point out that our son was essentially trapped in the closet in the room next to him, and asked why he hadn’t helped. I got the deer-in-headlights look. Apparently, daddy thought our son was farther away and talking to me. And my calling for our son when I couldn’t find him? Oh, I wasn’t paying attention.
I roll my eyes, and carry our son back out to the library where he can play with the train set while I write at my desk. Of course, I’m muttering about my husband’s deafness, and grumbling about what a great help he is, so it takes me a few minutes before I can think rationally again. But as the mommy-panic-and-frustration haze begins to clear I remember a film I watched in a long ago psychology class talking about this very issue.
In the film there was a scene with a couple sitting on the couch watching TV. There’s a faint baby cry and the woman asks if the man heard. He says no, and she goes to check. Within seconds she comes back to report that the baby stirred, but fell back asleep. They go back to watching TV then a faint metallic rattling sounds and the man turns to the woman asking if she heard it, which of course she did not. He goes to check and comes back to report that the furnace was acting up, but is now fine.
To be fair, my husband can start the car and within moments can tell you if the car is running as it should. I surely can’t tell the difference between the subtle sound changes in the engine, so why do I get frustrated that he can’t tell the subtle sound differences of our son’s cry? Intellectually, I understand that he and I attune to different things. I even understand the psychology behind it, but as a mother…well, I don’t understand.
