thanks for not being a zombie

Yeah, I read that article. There are messages in a forum about the article, too.

One time I went to a coffee shop where they were BLASTING Beastie Boys, and I couldn't even hear myself think (I had gone there to work), but children's presence in a coffee shop has never bothered me.

Yeah, but why? Clearly not everyone is bothered by the same sounds (otherwise the Beastie Boys would not have been blasting in the shop; otherwise small children would never behave the way they do for very long), so how do different groups develop their acoustic biases? The answers, I think, have to involve issues that are not just about sound but also about our associations with the sources of those sounds.

"My baby's squeals of joy warm my heart. Your baby's squeals of joy make me grate my teeth."

Or is that simplistic?

I also think there's something to be said for the perhaps intractable differences among us that result from differences in brain chemistry or the physical makeup of our bodies. Not being a scientist, however, I'm reluctant to push those considerations too far.

Brain chemistry and one's "hearing fitness" (how sensitive one's hearing is) might have a lot to do with all of this. But also, context matters. In my story, it was all about context, i.e., 6:30 am, still being asleep, and generally hating mornings anyway! :) In fact, the same banging around downstairs doesn't bother me a bit during the day and evening hours. Indeed, I can hear someone right now -- no problem.

What's more, blasting music, kids in coffee shops, and bustling city noises *help* me work. They create a kind of white noise wall-o-sound. When I'm working somewhere quiet, I'm more easily bothered. The noises most likely to bother me are whispering, gumming chewing, and the clack of computer keys in libraries. (Hey, didn't you post about an annoying clicky-clicky guy at the BL?) And I still remember taking the PSAT in high school and getting furious at the two whispering girls behind me, who'd pretty much given up taking the test b/c, as they said, "it's just practice." (Not if you're an over-achieving high schooler trying to be a Nat'l Merit Scholar, said the nascent Lisa Simpson in me!) Anyway, I couldn't even hear what those girls were saying, but their *mouth sounds* -- pops and clicks of the tongue, teeth, and lips -- drove me up the wall.

Context is everything, I think.

Actually, I can't take kid noises, sometimes even in places where it should be appropriate, like the soccer field. I think it's because both of my kids are pretty quiet. We took them to restaurants when they were little and they always behaved themselves. Of course, we tended to be at kid-friendly place, but still.

This past weekend at the soccer games, I noticed how much kid noise bothered me. At Geeky Girl's, there was a boy, the brother of one of the players and he kept on complaining and complaining in a really loud voice, about school lunches, about being bored. His voice was really grating. He was about nine. Same aged boys at Geeky Boy's game also annoyed me. Obviously, we're outside and it should be fine for them to be as loud as they want, but it was hard to concentrate on the games with all that noise.

I think if the guy wants to keep children out, fine. It's his business as one woman said.

I think this is an interesting conversation because I work in a library which is percieved as being quiet. However, it's a very small one room library and the noise level sometimes reaches a really high pitch, especially right after school when all the kids come in. What I wanted to note is that I think there are different types of child noises: pleasant ones and irritating ones. More interesting is something I just noticed recently: usually the kids with the most irritating loud or whiny voices are fetched by parents with obnoxious sounding voices. I've been tempted a few times to go over to a child and say, "Would you please ask your parent to be quiet and remind him/her that he/she is in a library?"

Oops -- I meant to say "gum chewing" in my earlier comments, but my typo reminds me that there's an NPR announcer (I can't remember which one) who clearly wears dentures and the different quality of sounds they produce when he talks kind of grates on me. I feel bad that this is so, but it is!

Also, I can't stand the sound of sloppy making-out. Ick. Get a room! :) Clearly I have issues with mouth noises -- perfectly normal ones, at that.

And Laura, I sympathize with your aversion to the whiny kid. Maybe it's all about pitch?