Dear Care and Feeding,
I have an unusual problem and am not sure how (or if) it can be resolved. My husband and I have a 1.5-year-old daughter, “Erin.” My mother has hyper-sensitive hearing. When I was a kid, I had to keep the TV on so low I needed to sit within three feet of it to hear it, and my sister and I had to talk to her in a lower volume than our normal speaking voices (my parents ended up divorcing when I was 10 because, according to my mother, my dad talked too loudly). The problem has only worsened as my mother has gotten older. Sounds produced by normal activities bother her, from a microwave beeping to people using utensils while eating to something being cut on a cutting board—even a Ziploc bag being opened within several feet of her.
Recently, my mother was over for a visit and had Erin on her lap. Erin let out a squeal after dropping one of her toys. My mother immediately got up, handed Erin to me, and left our house. This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened (she barely came around after Erin was first born because she couldn’t stand the sound of her crying). Later, I received a text from her saying that in order to continue coming over, she needed assurances that Erin wouldn’t do anything else to hurt her ears. I explained that just wasn’t something I could guarantee or have any control over at this point; babies do sometimes get loud, and Erin is too young to understand the need to protect Grandma’s ears. When I suggested that my mother try some ear plugs to reduce the impact of not only any loud noises Erin might make, but also any ambient noise in general, she became angry and said she wouldn’t be back until I found a “realistic” solution.
My husband says that my solution is a reasonable one—he’s fed up and it’s fine with him if my mother wants to stay away. While I want my daughter to have a relationship with her grandmother, I can’t always predict when Erin might do something loud, let alone do anything to prevent it. And I don’t want my mother tearing into her in the future for doing normal kid things, like she did to me and my sister. Erin also isn’t going to be our only child—I’m currently four months pregnant—so it isn’t going to get any quieter around here. And like my husband, I’m exhausted with constantly playing a guessing game about which everyday action might hurt my mother’s ears. She expects us to just know, and then becomes angry when we do something no normal person would think of as problematic—last week, she got angry at me for biting into a carrot while I was almost ten feet away from her.
Over the years she has shot down suggestions from me and other family members to go to a doctor and see whether anything might remedy this. Is it reasonable to ask her to take some sort of proactive measure (such as wearing earplugs) so others can lead normal lives in her presence, rather than expecting the world—and my 1-year-old—to adapt to her?