Nothing Gold

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay. -Robert Frost

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Location: Arlington, Virginia, United States

I am a white American middle class suburban housewife trying desperately to tell herself that that is not who she is. One time I was a glowing young ruffian. Oh my God it was a million years ago.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

On a Quiet Voice

I noticed recently that my son has quite a quiet little voice. He doesn't seem shy and his speaking is fine for his age, but his voice is very soft. He doesn't need to speak loudly at home because it is just he and I and I listen fairly closely to what he says, but it's noticable when we are in loud places and he's trying to talk to me. I know that he gets this feature from me and it bothers me a little. A quiet voice has not generally been a good thing for me. People often just don't listen. They will look at me as if they are listening, and then completely ignore what I say. I'm not sure if they dismiss what I say or if they don't hear me and are too polite to say, "what?" Sometimes when I'm speaking to a group people will simply turn away from me and start speaking to someone else while I'm in mid-sentence. I promise that I'm not paranoid about this, my hubby notices it too. He's the one in the group that keeps listening so that I'm not talking to myself. I'll play it off and finish what I'm saying to just him, even though it's something he already knows. Sometimes it bothers him more than it bothers me. Some people do it hardly ever and some people do it almost always. If you aren't Schuyler or Leah, you've probably done it at some point or other. But don't worry, everybody that reads this blog (that I know of) falls under the hardly ever category. Anyway, all that to say that I don't want Levi to run into this problem. I have the feeling that it would be much worse for a man. I don't want him to be ignored and dismissed. I wonder if there is anything I can do to encourage him to speak more loudly.

1 Comments:

Blogger Liz said...

I hate to say it, but I think as a man he is less likely to be dismissed. I think quiet men often garner more respect. Remember a few years back there was commerical for some investment agency and they had a broker talking to his client... the tag line was, "When {company?} speaks everyone listens." and all the other people on the stage stopped talking to hear what this guy had to say. I know that was a commercial for a specific product, but I've noticed that in general all people pay more attention to men than to woman. Good for Levi, sad for the world.

10:56 PM  

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