Is It Just Me – Mutterings

Is it just me?

Or are you ever so agitated about an event, person or specific justice-challenged situation that you feel compelled to mutter about it in public? Do these grumblings ever grow in volume and clarity to the point at which strangers begin to look at you askance or possibly cross to the other side of the street?

If your answer is yes, read on. If your answer is no . . . liar, liar, pants on fire.

According to family lore, I was born talking to myself. I was always taught to speak nicely and with respect to my parents. Hence, particularly during my adolescence, there were some extremely quiet months in our household, broken only by what my mother called, “the angry ghost”. That was me in my room, the backyard or in a corner of the kitchen growling all the disrespectful, nasty, wrath-inviting things I couldn’t bring myself to say to others. I was both fearful and resourceful.

During the nineties, as a progressive mother I tried to foster free speech and confidence in my children. Apparently, I succeeded. My boys are versatile at speaking their minds. I’m sure, in their hearts, they venerate my husband and me. They don’t always show consideration for our ears though and sometimes, I wish we’d instilled a little more healthy fear. Lately, I’ve noticed a new development: my thirteen year-old son, Charlie, is riffing off his mother, muttering to himself in his room, in the car, at the dinner-table. Should I be worried?

As a young adult, I learned to curb my desire to soliloquy aloud when angry. I alternately smoked, drank, ran and ate chips, instead. When I had my first child in my thirties, I discovered that I could revert to public monologuing. When you walk an infant in a stroller, it is socially acceptable to speak out loud even when you’re bitching about how your jeans don’t fit or how “funny Daddy” put your cashmere sweater in the washing machine. You’re talking directly to another human being – the fact that this person can only burp, laugh or baby-talk is an unimportant detail. You are still considered sane. You are having a conversation.

Last week, I was in the Children’s section of a large bookstore. As I perused the early chapter books, I could hear a little kid crying in the distance, revving him or herself up for a major tantrum. Of course, all I could think was, “Not mine! Yay!”

Moments later, the mother of this sputtering, sweating five year-old, put him on the floor facing a bookshelf quite close to where I was standing – a makeshift time-out, I thought. The little boy sobbed: “I hate this stupid store! Everything here is too expensive so I’m not allowed to get anything. Why did she even bring me here if I can’t choose anything? It’s not fair.”

Two things simultaneously occurred to me as I listened to the boy’s diatribe. The first was that he was actually organizing his thoughts and feelings as he screamed them at the bookshelf. The second, and of even greater importance, was that giving voice to his emotions calmed the child down. In less than a minute, he had sucked up his snot and bounded back to his waiting mom, again ready to take on the unjustness of the bookstore and beyond. Little did the boy know that if he’d stayed put for another moment, I would have gladly offered to buy him anything in the place because his rant had touched my heart with its simplicity of content and purpose.

At what age must we put the kibosh on kids or on anyone getting their rage out of their systems? By howling at the injustice of it all, this little boy had effectively soothed himself in a manner that no amount of hugs or explanations could have equaled. Nobody thought he was crazy. Yet, if a teenager or an adult ever wailed like that in public, we would all assume that someone was off his meds. Maybe, muttering is a compromise that should be borne and applauded, allowing the child within to soothe the outer adult without frightening the world.

I’ve decided to let Charlie mutter, grumble, growl and moan. Occasionally, I will ask him to take the angry ghost to his room for a full exorcism so that the rest of the family can at least hear ourselves think in peace, but otherwise I’m thankful he has inherited this gene. I believe it will keep his blood pressure down through all the unfair trials to come.

As for me, I recently purchased one of those new ear-pieces that invisibly connect to your cell-phone and allow you to use it hands-free. Though I no longer push a stroller, this fabulous technological contraption allows me to walk around ranting in public again whenever I feel so inclined. Thus far, I’ve drawn no strange stares. I am, after all, simply having a conversation with another human being.

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