More Love, Less Panic by Claude Knobler

Author:Claude Knobler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2014-12-02T05:00:00+00:00

And so I tried to encourage him to maybe come downstairs quietly. To take a moment to think about how the other people in the house might like to, you know, ease into their mornings. And I encouraged him to read the paper, to look at the comics or at least maybe look at the photographs in the sports section. Because, I told myself, it would be good for him to grow up to be well informed.

And we worked on the shouting. There was a lot of shouting.

It was Nati’s normal practice TO SHOUT AT THE TOP OF WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN HIS TINY LITTLE LUNGS. Every word. Or, if you prefer, EVERY WORD. Thinking I might be able to handle this particular problem with a demonstration, I stood up from the table and walked a foot or so away. The kids and Mary all looked up at me. I turned toward Nati.

“Raise your hand if you can hear me,” I said in a very quiet voice.

Everybody raised their hand.

I took a step back.

“Okay, put your hand down if you can hear me,” I said in the same quiet voice.

The kids, especially Nati, giggled and then lowered their hands.

“Now,” I whispered as I took about six steps backward away from the table, “raise your hand if you can hear me.”

Hands went up.

I began walking back toward the table, still speaking softly.

“Nati,” I said, in my quiet voice, “you really don’t need to use a loud voice, okay? Because we can hear you even when you whisper.”

Nati smiled and lowered his head a bit, which meant he understood and I had actually gotten through to him. I was standing next to him, so now I raised my voice TO THE SAME OBSCENELY LOUD LEVEL IT HAD BEEN WHEN HE WAS SHOUTING AT ME.

“SEE, NATI? YOU DON’T NEED TO TALK THIS LOUDLY.”

Nati laughed and covered his ears.

“Daaaaaaaad,” he said. He was whining, but he was doing it quietly. Better still, he managed to stay reasonably quiet that whole meal. The next day at breakfast, however, Nati began shouting again. I sighed and stood up.

“Nati,” I asked in a very quiet voice, “can you put your hand up high in the air?”

No dice this time, the kid was already on to me. He just lowered his head and smiled, then raised his head back up. “NO, DAD, NO PUT MY HAND IN THE AIR,” he said. “I CAN’T HEAR YOU.”

And so I began shouting at Nati. But only to get him to quiet down.

There is, I think, no moment quite as goofy for a parent as when they catch themselves screaming at their child that they “WANT SOME PEACE AND QUIET RIGHT NOW, DAMMIT!” It’s not an uncommon moment, but for some reason the utter insanity of screaming for quiet never seems to teach us that this business of trying to change our kids is doomed from the start. Maybe that’s just because it’s so noisy in our homes that we can’t think these things through.

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