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Welcome to these regular musings, meanderings, wonderings and wanderings by Wendy Priesnitz.  It Hasn’t Shut Me Up – November 7, 2009 When I began working as a writer and a journalist over 30 years ago, I had a sense of coming home, that I was doing work that perfectly fit my temperament and personality. In fact, I felt a sense of relief that I was finally able to ask questions; that I could make money doing so was a bonus. I’m known in my family as a questioner and a communicator. I name problems and issues. Analyzing, describing and challenging is how I understand things. And I believe (stubbornly but incorrectly) that any problem can be solved given enough opportunity to talk about it. My curiosity meets my inner chatterbox child quite often as I go about my day mumbling questions that are, more often than not, rhetorical. It’s likely that I am this way because it wasn’t always this way. I grew up being told to keep quiet and not to question. “Curiosity killed the cat,” snapped my maternal grandmother. Sharing my feelings and ideas, and commenting on what was happening around me was also taboo. “Hold your tongue,” my grandmother would say demeaningly when I began to chatter. Conversation was for adults and learning was a passive, listening sort of experience. “If God had wanted you to talk more than listen, he’d have given you two mouths and one ear,” admonished my mother when I would try to involve myself in dinner table chat. “Little pitchers have big ears,” cautioned my mother mysteriously when the adults wanted to discuss one of the many interesting topics that were off-limits to a child. “Children are to be seen and not heard,” concluded my grandmother. As a child, I felt resentful. As a teenager, I began to reject the way I had been brought up and awkwardly tried to find my voice, which I did, with increasing courage and confidence. As a young mother, I was determined to encourage my daughters’ questions, to respect their opinions and to include them in conversations. That became the foundation on which our unschooling lifestyle was built. Now that I have finally developed enough courage to ask, but can’t because they’re both dead, I wonder why my grandmother and mother were so determined to shut me down. Did those two strong women resent being silenced themselves? Did they long to be heard in their own lives? Or did they truly believe that what I didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me? My mother was aghast as, just a few years before she died, I finally began to break the silence in our relationship, naming things, asking questions and hoping for answers from her that she was not able or willing to provide. Sadly, that is not the only situation in which my relentless questions and observations are not welcome. I’m still occasionally told not to be so nosy or so blunt, to bite my tongue, to suck it up, to know my place. I’ve learned tact and grace over the years, but I have also learned that questioning is the most direct route to learning. And so it hasn’t shut me up. Posted: 2009/11/07 10:09AM Return to current blog Comments? Suggestions? Email Us copyright © Wendy Priesnitz 2004-2009

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