Dear Kathy,
My mom doesn’t understand why we are somewhat estranged. Here’s why: When I realized I was very depressed, I tried to tell my mom about it. I wanted her support—I thought I really needed it. She was having her own problems and seemed to brush mine away. Could she really not see my need enough to be concerned about me and take care of me a little bit? And if not, why not? It was devastating then, and is still now when I think about it. Why can’t she understand why I need to take space from her?
Still Hurt, Somewhat Estranged and Confused
Dear Hurt and Confused,
It must have been devastating to realize you were very depressed, and then to feel your mother couldn’t make emotional space for you. Even though she had other things on her mind, you really hoped she would reach for you, and she didn’t. I wonder if this echoed other times in your life together that your mom couldn’t support you. And also, I wonder if sometimes she could and sometimes she couldn’t, which is very confusing to a child (and even to grownups). I will say more about this at another time, but when a parent is only available some of the time, it can lead to a child doubling their efforts to get their parent’s attention, hoping that extra effort on the child’s part will catch the parent’s eye.
Let’s get back to the adult you. Your mother couldn’t hear you, at least in part because she was preoccupied. But beyond individual preoccupation, listening problems are rampant in modern society. We may never have been very good at listening to each other, but we currently are challenged even to pay attention to each other. We have multiple devices, apps, and threads calling for our attention all the time. We text instead of talking live; we ghost when we don’t know how to solve a problem between us. I think that one reason for the amount of “cut off” in modern culture is that we don’t know how to listen to and talk to each other, and we can easily distract ourselves to make the problem seem to go away.
Some Causes of Listening Problems:
Preoccupation with problems and with yourself
Poor Listening Skills (including too much referencing of your own experience)
Trouble hearing things about you that are negative or critical
Trouble putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, even someone you love
** Several of these topics deserve their own column, and I plan to write them!
Here are Some Contributing Factors:
Not having learned to see another person’s perspective: Not all homes offer the opportunity to learn to appreciate how another person feels. Learning to truly see someone else’s perspective isn’t something we are simply born knowing; it’s a learned skill. If you were fortunate, your childhood home—or opportunities like a youth group, church circle, or sports team—acted as an emotional laboratory where a trusted adult gently modeled how to step into someone else’s shoes. In those moments, you learned that differing viewpoints didn’t mean the relationship was breaking. If you didn’t grow up with that kind of modeling, you may struggle to listen as a adult. Many households taught us that conflict equals danger, so our nervous systems learned to armor up rather than open up. You can still begin building this skill, understanding that compassion for yourself in the learning process is not only key, but also good practice.
Splintered Attention: With our lives tethered to smartphones and screens, we live in an environment of constant pings, notifications, and background digital chatter. Constantly multitasking leaves our brains exhausted by a phenomenon called “switch cost.” Even when a device is silent, the mere awareness that a message might be waiting creates a low-grade distraction. This trains us into a state of “partial attention”—where we are physically in the room with someone, but our cognitive bandwidth is perpetually tuned elsewhere, making it mentally difficult to lock onto a continuous stream of spoken information.
The Urge to Fix or Fixate on Discomfort: When a loved one shares something heavy or painful, it creates immediate emotional discomfort for the listener. Instead of sitting quietly to hear the full story, the modern impulse is to rush in and fix it, offer instant advice, or silver-line the problem just to make the unpleasant feeling go away. If what our loved one is telling us includes information about us, we may become uncomfortable. Learning to say “thank you for the feedback”, and meaning it, is challenging and also an important skill to build.
Emotional Reactivity and Defensiveness: Modern life is deeply stressful, leaving many of us with frayed nerves and a hyper-sensitive nervous system. When someone brings up a critique, a differing viewpoint, or emotional friction, we can feel threatened. That triggers a fight-or-flight response, flooding the body with stress hormones—we may armor up rather than truly listen.
The “Closeness-Communication Bias” (Assuming We Already Know): Ironically, we struggle to listen best to the people closest to us—our partners, children, and siblings. Because we know them so well, we fall into a cognitive trap where we assume we already know what they are going to say before they finish a sentence. This reduces genuine curiosity and makes us stop listening halfway through, replacing their actual words with our own assumptions.
Entertainment and Media Conditioning for Fast Pacing: The media we consume—from short-form video algorithms and jump cuts to hyper-fast TV editing—has trained our brains to expect rapid-fire stimulation. When real-world human conversation features natural pauses, hesitation, processing time, or a slow and winding emotional explanation, it can feel agonizingly “slow” to a modern, over-stimulated brain, causing us to mentally check due to our shortened attention spans.
How Can We Bear Knowing We Are Flawed?
Of course, defensiveness often gets in the way of listening, making the "ouch" of feedback hard to bear. We’ll dive deeper into why we get so defensive in an upcoming column. But in the meantime, if you find yourself in an emotional conversation, do what you can to slow yourself down. If you have a moment beforehand, take a few slow, steady breaths. If you're caught by surprise, slow your breathing right then and there, or simply pause and ask, "Give me a minute to center myself." (Or use whatever phrasing feels natural to you.)
How Can We Listen Better?
When I was in graduate school, I took a course in what was then called “Active Listening”. Yes, it was for therapists, but it has helped in all of my relationships. (Or, as my colleague said, it was helping with the problems she was having with her husband.) We don’t know how to listen well to each other, so taking a course and watching videos on the topic might be helpful. Here are some terms you could use to search for both:
“How to listen to a loved one”
“Communication skills for families”
“Family communication active listening skills course”
You will not be surprised that I ask you to be compassionate with yourself and others in this learning process. This means offering grace to both yourself and others. Listening is a hard skill to learn, taking time, patience, and practice. Being compassionate will help you navigate the awkwardness, failure, and uncomfortable learning curve.
Practice with your safest loved ones first, then branch out to more challenging relationships.
And don't forget your sense of humor. Listening is hard, and being able to laugh at ourselves is sometimes the best bridge we can build.
_______________________________
So, Dear Hurt and Confused,
Your difficulty with your mother is understandably deeply painful. If it feels safe enough, I encourage you to let her know that you would like her to learn to listen better and make space to hear you. You could even give her this column, if you think it would help!
My hope is that you find the love and support you need and deserve.
Best,
Kathy
Please reach out to me in the Chat, Comments Section or at ksinsheimermft@gmail.com
This is column #57