Please, think of the kittens!

Do you know those people who are capable of holding an entire conversation without actually understanding a single word the other person has said?

For instance, my daughter goes out of town to visit her grandparents every few weeks and someone asked me,  “How’s the girl?” and I replied, “She’s down on the farm.” And they replied, “Mmm. That’s nice. Give her a hug for me.” And it was clear that they didn’t mean when she gets back because, despite the fact that I had just said she was out of town, clearly the words that registered in their head were, “She’s doing great and she’s right here with me now.”

And I wanted to scream, “Did you hear me??? I said she’s out of town!!” But I didn’t.

Because when I have conversations like this (and I don’t mean conversations where for a few minutes my conversational partner gets distracted and zones out – because I’m pretty sure I have ADD and I know that I do that too – I mean conversations where the other person has already had the conversation in their head and you are really just superfluous) instead of telling the person that I don’t think they are understanding my meaning, I shut down. My sentences become shorter, and my breath gets shallow, and my throat gets tight. And I start to nod (and I’d say smile but apparently my facial expressions are pretty transparent so I’m sure I just look like I have to go to the bathroom) until the other person thinks I’m completely stupid and gives up and walks away from me, probably feeling pity that I’m incapable of forming real thoughts (if they’ve even noticed that there was something strange about the exchange at all). And then I start to cry – because, really that’s what solves every situation.

As adults we have it pretty good – the majority of people in the world (in my world anyway) are, for the most part, pretty empathetic and two-sided conversationalists. There is a fair amount of give-and-take in most adult relationships.

Children, though. Ugh.

For some reason, we adults do this to children all the time. As though a child is not capable of creating her own thought path, so we must do it for her.

Child: “Check out this totally awesome rocket I just built!”

Adult: “Mm hmm. Rockets are adorable. Aren’t you cute for building something. Did

you eat your lunch?”

Child: “WTF? How are those in any way related? Did you hear a word I just said???”

I know for the girl this is the one thing that positively drives her over the edge. You can believe me or not, but this girl is one of the easiest people to get along with. (She is, as the Waldorf-ians define it: sanguine with a secondary melancholic temperament – meaning she’s usually jolly and a bit of a people pleaser). You want to disagree with her? No problem, she’ll try to understand your point of view. You want to ask her to put away her laundry? Sure, sure. You need to go to a two hour long staff meeting? This six-year-old child happily sits down and colors for two hours. But man, if she is talking to you and you repeatedly ignore the meaning of what she is saying to you? Look out!

And I get it! I have had nearly thirty years of practice talking to people who don’t hear me and I still have a physical reaction. She’s only had six.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this except to voice empathy and frustration over this whole non-listening thing. It’s a topic that’s been coming up for me a lot over the past few weeks.

Just remember – Every time you engage in a conversation and don’t listen to your conversational partner, God kills a kitten.

Please, think of the kittens.