The Baby can Hear

When the adoption agency showed us our 4-month daughter-to-be, we were asked to take the baby for a medical checkup. This will sound silly, but back then, I was worried if the baby was, er, deaf. I guess the way I asked the question to the doctor, the intent didn’t come out clearly. She misunderstood it as a crazy parent asking whether the baby had any special hearing capabilities, something that might indicate a musical career! She gave me a mouthful about how such things cannot be identified in babies, how they acquire skills as they grow up (you get the gist).

 

So I had to get creative. When we came back to the car, and my wife and the baby had gotten into it, I banged the car door hard. Intentionally. The baby visibly flinched – my question had been answered: she could hear, she wasn’t deaf.

 

It was only later that I realized that children may hear but they never listen. Many attributes of children improve as they grow older. But not the listen-to-parents faculty. Nope, that one only degrades as they get older…



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