I'm back at my parents' home again and per usual for my visits home this blog will be about a phenomenon that I have witnessed in my family.  That is the phenomenon of "selective listening."  Of course selective listening is not a phenomenon that is exclusive to my family.  Selective listening (also called "selective auditory attention")  has existed as a labeled term for a long time.  In fact, selective listening was first researched back in 1953 when Colin Cherry realized that people can pinpoint their own names in a sentence that they otherwise do not attend to and of which they cannot recall the contents.  So we know that this idea has been around for a while (since 1953 at least!) and has affected enough people to be studied and named.

While we can probably assume that most people have selectively listened at one point or another, I believe that mothers have a special kind of selective listening. If I'm right, then my mother is a victim of this phenomenon (or I am as her child--depends on how you look at it).   Without fail, if my mother is not directly looking at me when I speak to her, she will hear no more than half of what I've said. Most of the time she doesn't hear anything.  Within the span of an hour today she completely ignored me at least 5 times.  Generally this selective listening is exacerbated by any attention focused toward another task.  I've learned since we first got a computer in 2000 that if my mother is on a computer, then it is not the time to talk to her.  You know that scene in "Family Guy" when Stewie repeatedly says "mother" in various forms, in an attempt to gain his mother's attention, only to be yelled at after numerous attempts?  While my mom is on the computer, that's exactly how my pleas for attention, and eventually her responses, look.

Why do mothers do this?  I have a theory on that too: If mothers didn't selectively listen they would never accomplish anything.  Think about how needy you were as a child.  Think about all of the times you simply sought your parents' attention because you were bored, or wanted praise, or wanted to show them something you created.  All of these are developmentally great reasons for a kid to seek his/her mother's attention, but if a mother processed and responded to each of these attempts for attention, that would be all they would have time for.  And then there would be no food, or work, or clothing (etc.) for the children...which is just bad parenting.  So what this means is that selective listening is actually an adaptive and productive behavior for both the children and the parents.  Though I feel neglected and ignored when my mother doesn't respond to my statements, my mother is simply attempting to maintain her sanity among the voices of three very obnoxious and needy children.

So really, like I already knew and she always asserts, my mom's smarter than me.  Yours is probably smarter than you too.  It's just a fact of life.

Keep on thinking,
Josie