White Noise

In my teens and early twenties, I turned on the radio or put on a CD before I went to bed. I “needed” the comfort of the background noise in order to fall asleep (my wife broke me of this habit shortly after we were married). It didn’t really matter what was playing. I could listen to a ball game, loud, noisy hard rock, or mellow instrumental. It was not what was on the radio that mattered; it was the sound, the noise, which made the difference. I could easily “ignore” the sound and fall asleep because it was always there, in the background, simply “white noise” that I didn’t have to concentrate or focus on.

Like every parent, I become frustrated when my kids do not “listen” to me. I can ask them to do something and will get absolutely no response whatsoever; no yes Dad, a nod of the head, or more miraculously, compliance to my request. I used to think that they were simply ignoring me; hearing my words, but consciously choosing not to respond. Maybe they were focusing so much on something else; they did not “hear” me. It is only after I change the pitch or volume of my voice that I can get their attention.

Although I still get frustrated when my children do not “hear” me, I no longer think they are consciously choosing to ignore me. They have simply heard my voice for so long that it has become just a part of the background chatter that surrounds them. My voice is something they don’t have to focus on because it is always there (which probably means I talk too much, but that is a topic for another time). As much as I hate to admit it, I, like most parents, have become “white noise” to my children. Much like the music I used to fall asleep to, my children have learned to find comfort in and to “ignore” the sound of my voice because it is always there, in the background, simple “white noise”.

A perfect example of this happened at one of my son Ian’s recent baseball practices. As Ian was waiting for his turn to hit, he repeatedly swung his aluminum bat into the back stop fence, creating a loud “ping” sound every time the bat made contact with the fence. I am one of the coaches for the team, so I called his name from across the field and asked him not to hit the fence with the bat (that pinging sound gets annoying pretty fast and frankly, it isn’t great for the bat). The only response I received was another “ping” and then another and another. I called his name a second time and told him to stop again. I received another “ping’ in reply. I tried a third time, with the same result. Frustrated and losing my patience, I asked one of the other coaches to tell him to stop. “Ian,” he called from second base. My son’s eyes immediately came up from the bat, which stopped mid-swing. “Stop hitting the bat into the fence,” the coach continued. My son smiled, said okay and dropped the bat without another ping.

Why did he listen to the other coach instead of me? Simply because it was a new voice cutting into his consciousness, not the same old “white noise” my voice has become.