Eavesdropping in the dark as son breaks speech barrier

I am standing in the hallway outside my son’s bedroom door, listening. OK, I’m eavesdropping — but it’s the only way I’m going to find out what’s really going on in his life.

Not that I don’t ask him directly. Every afternoon in the van at the end of a long school day, I pitch questions such as, “What made today fun?” or “What happened that surprised you today?”

I have read parenting articles that recommend asking open-ended questions rather than those that can be answered with a simple “yes,” “no” or the most meaningless reply, “fine.” So, instead, I ask things that should elicit a thoughtful response.

Unfortunately, the answer I get from my son these days is “nothing.”

How is this possible? He leaves the house before 8 a.m. and doesn’t climb into the car until after 3 p.m. It’s inconceivable to me that in more than seven hours away from home, nothing happens that is even remotely remarkable.

Yet, ever since he started sixth grade, I have noticed a change in my son. The boy who can talk for seven or eight minutes without a breath about last week’s soccer game or last night’s Yankees game or the last frozen waffle in the refrigerator is suddenly mute about middle school.

When I ask, “Who did you hang with at recess?” the answer is, “My friends.”

If I probe with, “Tell me about your classes,” I get, “They’re boring.”

Once I asked, “So, do you have a girlfriend?”

He said, “No. Should I?” This felt like a conversational victory.

“Of course not,” I said. “I just wanted to see if you were listening.”

It seems unlikely that overnight my son has developed the male propensity for uncommunicativeness. His voice hasn’t even started to crack, so it’s too early for him to bury his face behind a newspaper and ignore the woman asking what he might like for dinner.

Besides, what I hear while standing in the dark is proof he’s still talking. He’s just not talking to me.

The whispered voices and muffled laughter are a sharp contrast to the busy, businesslike tone my son and I have adopted lately. Our time together is always short, often hectic — we interact in staccato, sharing cryptic messages to convey the bare essentials. It isn’t talking so much as debriefing.

“Homework?” I ask.

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