I Am a Talker; So is My Daughter

I am a talker. So is my daughter. Don’t get me wrong, my two sons are wonderful conversationalists, but there is a difference. My daughter doesn’t do this anymore, but when (and she knows this story) she would come home from elementary school, and the family was sitting at dinner, she would start talking about her day at school starting with the moment she met the first person in her class and proceed to recount most every detail of her day. At some moment during our dinner one of the boys would say, “Summarize, summarize.”


There are social situations that any “talker” will be “forced” into silence. It is an interesting phenomenon, but it DOES happen. I believe it happens when other “talkers” are engaged with each other. One such social dynamic occurs when my daughter comes home by herself. This is the most wonderful thing when a child returns home. This is a person that was a baby, toddler, child, youth, and adult under your roof. There is no other person in which you will be more intimately involved with than this child which you have raised.

But, when my daughter returns, she and her mother immediately connect. I chalk it up to the “female encounter”. As a dentist, I have worked with women all my life. I love women. I grew up in a family with four brothers, so “girls”; “women” were always a wonderful mystery to ALL of us. But, there is a special dynamic here. Not unlike we men who gather to watch sporting events. Women feel engaged at times, but it is a guy thing.

So when my daughter comes into the house, she and my wife start doing the women thing. I am not a big fan of shopping, recipes, clothes, child rearing techniques, etc., so this talker is silenced. Usually seated in the living room listening for the moment that they will launch into subjects like baseball statistics, politics, religion, golfing, football, etc. Never happens. Women stuff. They are welcome to it, and I still LOVE every minute of it.

I recently got a chance to travel to St. Louis International Airport to pick up my daughter and our grandson and travel two and one-half hours home. The next day my daughter and I had to make the same round trip to attend a baptism of another wonderful grandson. My wife had to stay at home with my daughters son, because he had a fever. So it was daughter and I in the car for another five-hour trip.

Two talkers engaged. It was fabulous! There is nothing like two talkers together. There is never a lack of “dead air”, as they say on radio. Now I am the older of the two and have to take a nap after lunch, but the conversation rolls when we are compos mentis.

Seven and one-half hours. Where do you find that in a life-time with anyone? One-on-one. Now add to that equation, two people that like to talk. If you haven’t gotten a better handle on the other individual, where they are, what makes them tick, what makes them happy, what they are doing, where they are going or want to go, what is important in their lives, personally, etc., then it is not for lack of opportunity.

Those seven and one-half hours are like gold. I will treasure it forever. It is now wrapped. I can take it out unfold that adventure over and over. My daughter is a child of mine. She is a wonderful lady, my baby, too. Everyone loves their baby!