What doorbell?

I’ve worked since the day that I was able. I’ve held countless retail jobs before graduating journalism school and taking several jobs in my chosen field. But, before all that, I was the neighborhood babysitter.

Beginning at age 14, I marketed myself. I posted flyers around my new neighborhood. I was determined to make some spending money. Plus, I loved kids. Ever since I can remember, I’ve envisioned being a mom. I never had siblings, but every chance I got, I would befriend younger kids—be it my mom’s friends’ children or my newest baby second cousin. I think I was looking for the companionship as much as I was looking for the cash. Plus, I was never one to sit still. I even printed out pictures of cartoon caricatures that my charges and I could color in with my trusty box of crayons, in case we ran out of things to do. Before you knew it, I was in high demand.

One of the first kids I babysat was an adorable little two-year-old boy named Frankie. We were best buds. As he got older and he became more vocal, I realized I was having a hard time understanding his soft lisp-y voice. I figured it was just because he was shy and he wasn’t speaking up. After all, I was wearing a hearing aid. I had practically normal hearing, right?

One day, while changing his diaper in his room upstairs, he kept telling me someone was knocking on the front door and even ringing the doorbell. I figured he was conning me to get out of a diaper changing. I firmly told him that there was nothing going on at the front door. Frustrated with me but always aiming to please, he fidgeted but stayed quiet while I finished changing him. Once we were done, he insisted we check the front door. No one was there. Why don’t we go for a walk now, I suggested. He agreed.

We weren’t more than a quarter-block down the street when the neighbors across the street ran up to us and to tell me they were just ringing the doorbell to see if Frankie wanted to come out and play. I was dumbfounded. How had I not heard the bell? Why had Frankie heard it and not me?

Years later, I would learn that children have lower hearing thresholds--the softest noise they can hear on average is quite a bit softer than adults can hear. Since my hearing then was worse than the average adult and hearing aid technology has never been able to amplify high pitches enough so I can hear them, voila, that’s why I didn’t hear the bell. In conjuction with my distance from the sound source, and the reverberation of the high ceilings, no wonder it was impossible for me to hear. Consider this: at the time, I had a mild to moderate hearing loss in the left ear and moderate to severe in the right and I was only aided on the right. I was still missing plenty. It makes sense now but, as a teenager, I was still so far in denial about my hearing and the reality of it. I didn’t want to accept that my hearing affected every facet of my life.