Out of Tune

Why did her daughter hate her singing?

Music had always been a big part of her life, so when she became mother, singing to her baby came as naturally to her as kissing her sweet head. Everyday she would sing to her lullabies, nursery rhymes that her mother had sung to her too when she was still a child.

They snuggle into their favorite chair as she her little baby. She would gaze deeply into her eyes, her tiny hands upon her skin. She loved it and would coo along with her before she could even talk.

Then suddenly at about the age of three, she stopped liking it.Each time she started to sing with her baby, it would cry. The lullabies and softer tunes would turned her off. She'd wail loudly and atonally. So the mother stopped.
After a few months or so, she try again hoping that its just been " a phase" She was devastated. Never before had she made anyone cry because of her music.

Some days this felt like the worst rejection she had ever known. The child wasn't  pushing away the music - she was pushing her mother away. Her reaction stung, like a slap.
I should mention that however the child is coping with "hypersensitivity." This means that she hears, sees, smells and tastes more intensely that others do. naturally, the mother use her child's sensitive hearing to help rationalize her acute reaction to her singing. As the year passed though, the child develop a love for pop music, begging her to find rock n' roll stations on the radio. Those kind of music didn't seem to bother her. on the contrary, the louder the better.

Whenever it is time for the child to go to bed, her mother would ask her why she cry every time she sings, but find it nice to listen to loud kind of songs, but the answer was always the same " I don't know."
One night, as she was putting her daughter to bed, she started singing thinking it would help her child to sleep faster, singing her favorite old song ....

" my funny valentine, sweet comic valentine, you make me smile with my heart ...."

She never made it to the second line. The child buried her face to her pillow and started to cry. 

Of course she stop singing immediately, but she also felt terrible. Wordlessly, she held her in her arms and rocked her gently. After a  while the child stop crying.

"Baby" she said, "I want you to take as much time as you need but try to tell me why you cry when I sing to you." 

They stayed quiet for a very long time and the the child quietly said, " mom, its too beautiful"

She had wrongly assumed that her child's reaction was he result of her hypersensitivity when it was just her daughter being herself - and being much like of her. A touching song on the radio can have her tearing up. The elevate , choked up  feeling can occur without warning; at the school play, or at night when her husband and her go in to look at they sleeping angel - their sweet, sensitive daughter.