Why words get between mothers and daughters

Who Cares?
While talking casually to her husband, Joanna absentmindedly tugs at a hangnail until the skin tears and a tiny droplet of blood appears. Unthinking, she holds it out before her husband’s eyes. “Put on a Band-Aid,” he says flatly. Her husband’s non-reaction makes Joanna wonder why she showed him so insignificant an injury. And then she realizes: She developed the habit of displaying her wounds, no matter how small, to her mother. Had she shown the ever so slightly broken skin to her, her mother would have reached out, taken Joanna’s finger in her hand, and examined it with a soothing grimace. Joanna was looking for that glance of sympathy, that fleeting reminder that someone else shares her universe. Who but her mother would regard so small an injury as worthy of attention? No one — because her mother would be responding not to the wound but to Joanna’s gesture in showing it to her. It isn’t only, isn’t really, concern for the torn hangnail that her mother shares but a subtle language of connection: The tiny drop of blood is an excuse for Joanna to remind her mother “I’m here” and for her mother to reassure her daughter “I care.”

Many women develop the habit of telling their mothers about minor misfortunes because they treasure the metamessage of caring they know they will hear in response, though, like Joanna, they may not notice until they get a different response from someone else. This also happened to a student in one of my classes, Carrie, when she was sick with the flu and called home. Carrie usually talked to her mother when she called, but this time her mother was out of the country, so she spoke to her father instead. This is how Carrie recounted the conversation in a class assignment:

Carrie: Hey, Daddy. I’m sick with the flu. It’s absolutely awful.

Dad: Well, take some medicine.

Carrie: I already did, but I still feel terrible.

Dad: Well then, go to the doctor.

Carrie: But everyone else at school is sick too. I couldn’t get an appointment for today.

Dad: Well, then, I’m sorry. I can’t help you there.

In commenting on this conversation, Carrie explained that she knows perfectly well to take medicine and go to the doctor when she’s sick. What she had been looking for when she called home was a metamessage of caring. In her words: “I am used to talking to my mother and having her fuss and worry over the smallest of my problems.” In contrast to her mother’s characteristic response, her father’s pragmatic approach came across as indifference and left her feeling dissatisfied, even slightly hurt.

Excerpted from "You're Wearing That?" by Deborah Tannen. Copyright © 2006 by Deborah Tannen. Excerpted by permission of Random House, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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