Hugh Mackay - Why Dont People Listen?

Meet the family...

Most of us learn about communication from our families. We learn it as part of the broader lessons our parents teach us consciously or unconsciously about how we should treat each other.

Such things are rarely spoken about, because they dont need to be made explicit. The lessons are obvious from the way our families behave.

Family life isnt all sweetness and light. In fact, when youre in the middle of one, a family can feel anything but sweet. All families are unhappy families, sometimes, and that is probably just as well. After all, the family is not only the place where we learn about tolerance, forgiveness and unconditional love; it is also where we learn about adversity, conflict and compromise.

If families are functioning properly, the big pay-off for society is that children will have already learned many of these lessons before they are let loose on the community. (This is the original intent of the widely misinterpreted proverb charity begins at home.)

A family figures prominently in the pages of this book, and Id like to introduce them to you.

Bill is in his early forties. He grew up on a farm, but had his heart set on the city from an early age. He works in a department of the public service. He was married to Judith and they had one daughter, Kelly. That marriage ended in divorce when Kelly was seven. She stayed with her mother until, nine years later, Judith remarried and went to live in the USA with her new husband. At that point, Kelly now a sixteen-year-old came to live with Bill who, by then, had married Margaret. Bill and Margaret have a son, Michael, now seven.

Margaret is in her early thirties. She had to be persuaded to marry Bill, partly because he is ten years older than she is, and partly because her closest friend had married a man with children from a previous marriage, and she wasnt keen on putting herself through the kind of difficulties theyd had to face. The fact that Kelly was living with Judith at the time weighed in Bills favour, but Kellys arrival on the scene all these years later has greatly complicated the life of the household.

Margarets own parents are divorced and she has a difficult relationship with her father, Cole, who is a fading celebrity in the media. Cole was never in favour of Margarets marriage to Bill, and still makes his feelings known though he is devoted to his grandson, Michael.

Margaret has recently returned to full-time work as an account executive in an advertising agency. She is stimulated by the job, and excited by her prospects for promotion.

We join the family as the seven-year-old Michael answers a telephone call from his mother. Michael is the only member of the family not to own a smartphone (though he does have Bills cast-off desktop computer in his bedroom) and he expresses his displeasure by monopolising the landline. When Margaret calls the house, she can be sure Michael will answer.