Attunement
By Anna Jordan
It’s eleven o’clock in the morning, and I’m supposed to be writing. Reading. Responding to an email. Something, anything productive. I have a to-do list as long as my arm, and I just need to cross one thing off. Well, ideally I need to cross all the things off, but I’ve been struggling to no avail for quite some time now, so I’ve lowered my expectations. Today, one item must be completed.
But there are eight children in my small, suburban-style ranch house, and only half of them are mine. Because it’s summer and no one has camp this week, I naively thought that I could somehow sneak productivity into my day if I let everyone have friends over. This logic is obviously flawed, but two hours ago it made perfect sense.
“You should have just told all the kids no,” my husband said. He’d called to check in while he was driving (alone) from one meeting to another.
My teenage son and his two friends laugh loudly from the driveway where they’re repairing a bike, while one of my tween daughters and her best friend make chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen.
“Mom! Should I microwave the butter for twenty seconds?” she calls.
“No, the cookies will be flat. Just leave it on the counter and do something else while you wait,” I call back. I reposition my phone on my ear and walk into the family room. I can hear the microwave whirring. “Well, theoretically they should all be able to entertain themselves,” I say to my husband.
“Then go into the bedroom and lock the door,” he replies. “Ignore them.”
***
Months before birth, mother dolphins whistle to their young in the womb, and for the two weeks after birth the other dolphins retreat into silence, making space for the calves to learn their mother’s call. While pods of dolphins move more quietly in the first two weeks so as to respect the need for bonding and communication in a mother and calf, the mother dolphin continues conversations with her calves for up to six years. Researchers indicate the mother and calf are in acoustic contact 100% of the time, and although scientists remain uncertain of the exact implications of this constant communication, they believe it’s an affirmation of presence that bonds the mother and child. I’m here. I’m here. Mom. Mom. Mom. I’m here. I’m here.
***
I hang up with my husband and turn around to see another of my tween daughters and her friend walking in from the garage with a gallon of glue and a 16-ounce shaker of glitter. “Don’t worry,” she says. “We’re taking it to the patio.”
I pick up my laptop from the couch and contemplate moving to my bedroom. I could ignore them, right? Probably not, but I could … try? I should try.
“Mom!” My five-year-old trots through the house wearing a backwards sundress, pushing a plastic toy Target cart full of oranges from our tree; two neighbor girls trail behind her.
Shoot. There are actually ten kids in this house.
“Can we make juice?” She says as she breezes past me, the answer is a foregone conclusion. These girls will be making juice whether I approve or not. “Can you get a jar? And can we have a snack?”
“Mom, are we already out of vanilla?”
“Mom, can you give us money to bike to 7-11 and get chips?”
“Mom, when we’re done making slime can you take us to the pool? Also, it’s fine if there’s slime in the grass, right?”
“Mom, can you buy more sparkling water?”
“Mom, can we have ramen for lunch?”
“Mom, where’s the blue bike helmet?”
I imagine myself locked in my bedroom wearing noise canceling headphones, encased in tidy silence, but they would probably just text me.
Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom.
***
Like dolphins, human babies are also womb-trained to their mother’s voice, preferring it immediately after birth, but mothers also become quickly attuned to their baby’s cries. My third baby arrived via emergency C-section—a crash section, they called it—the abrupt transition from active labor to anesthesia slamming me into motherhood for a third time. I awoke, groggy, in the recovery room to the sound of a baby crying, and before I could even hold my eyes open I knew that baby was mine. I hadn’t even seen her yet, but I knew.
A mother’s attunement to her baby’s cries is an involuntary biological and neurological response. Pregnancy actually rewires a mother’s brain in a process called maternal brain plasticity, which essentially restructures cognitive processes and adapts the mother’s brain to both identify and respond to her infant’s unique cries.
The sound of my new baby launched me from my groggy state and immediately compelled me to reach for her. I lifted my shaky arms and said her name, and as she nestled into my chest her cries subsided. I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.
***
After juicing twenty-five oranges, marveling at the slime creations, finding the vanilla, doling out $10 for chips (inflation, baby), and telling people to make their own ramen for goodness’ sake, I retreated to my bedroom. For the brief moment the children were otherwise engaged, I attempted productivity.
Bzz.
When are you doooonnnne? Can you drop us at Target plz?
Bzz.
The pool???????? When are we leeeeeeaving??
Bzz.
Flat tire. Heading home.
Bzz.
The little girls want to know if they can watch a show???
***
The scientists at Florida’s Sarasota Dolphin Research Program have been studying the communication of dolphin mothers and their calves by recording their perpetual whistles through devices they attach with suction cups to the dolphins’ forehead bumps.
If scientists attached a device to human mothers, I bet the data would be shockingly similar.
Last summer, my friend bought a clicker counter to track how often her children called her name. Ten, twelve, sometimes fifteen times a minute, she said.
Mom, mom, mom. Click. Click. Click.
I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.
***
My husband constantly encourages me to hold better boundaries. Be stricter. Say no more often. Lock the door. Turn off my phone. Easy for him to say, with his less pronounced neurological changes and summer of physical independence from our children.
I thought by this stage of the mothering game I would have an easier time extracting myself from my children. That I would adapt away from them as they grew older, more independent. And in many ways, I have. The care work of mothering is different now than it was when they were all clingy and tiny and dependent on me for the entirety of their existence, but I still find myself consistently drawn in by their presence.
Ignore them. Right.
I walk into the living room, tell kids I just need one hour of uninterrupted time—amazing how I’ve allowed my day of productivity to be whittled away to a single stolen hour—and return to my bedroom.
They’re all perfectly capable of fending for themselves. No one actually needs me. But even though they’re satiated and distracted, I can feel myself remaining on high alert. When my children were babies, I used to hear phantom cries, even if I knew they were sleeping. Sometimes still, I think I hear their voices calling me when I’m in the shower.
Mom. Mom. Mom. I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.
I check my phone. Nothing. I could have sworn …
Now it’s phantom texts. Phantom haptics. Bzz. Bzz. Bzz.
It’s easier during the school year, while they’re tucked away in their classrooms with their teachers and friends, I can focus. But in the summer, with their needs bouncing off every wall, ricocheting around me, I don’t know how to ignore them ... I’m not sure I want to. I’ve spent the last fifteen years like a dolphin, echolocating to their needs. Responding to every shriek, laugh, yell. Constant acoustic contact.
***
I hear the slow creak of my bedroom door and look up to see my oldest daughter tiptoeing into the room with a plate containing two of her freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.
She silently slides the plate across the bed where I’m sitting cross-legged with my lap desk.
“I hope you get a lot done,” she whispers.
Apparently, mothers’ brains remain dynamic as their children grow. Our neurobiological response shifts with the increased complexity of our environments, but it also never returns to its original state. Rather, our brains continue adapting according to the developmental stages of our children. Maybe that adaptation isn’t as immediate for me as the initial attunement. Maybe I don’t need to learn to ignore them, but rather I need to learn to trust that we can all grow and adapt together.
I take a bite of the warm, gooey cookie and finally get to work.
I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.
Anna Jordan is a writer and Assistant Professor of English at Westmont College. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Common Good Magazine, Plough, Verily Magazine, Literary Mama, Flash Fiction Magazine, Mother.ly, and elsewhere. Before transitioning into full-time academia, Anna served as the Director of Creativity for Coffee + Crumbs, where she was also a contributing writer. She is endlessly grateful for her time spent at Coffee + Crumbs. Having the opportunity to contribute here one last time has been a gift.
Photo by Jennifer Floyd.