I think every parent at some time looks at their young child and quietly prays that they will not possess certain qualities displayed by their spouse.

You secretly hope they will be only the best of each of you and miraculously avoid those annoying characteristics, which make us fantasize of single life.

I have no doubt that my husband has mumbled more than once, "You're just like your mother" when one of our boys has taken a pit bull-like grip onto an irrelevant point in an argument, so as to have the last word. I think that's called tenacity.

I know I've thought, "You're just like your father," when all three boys walked past a wrapper lying wadded up on the floor, as if picking it up isn't in their job description. I guess it's a form of energy conservation.

For all of my husband's wonderful qualities, including amazing patience and a remarkable ability to fix anything, there is one male quality I was hoping our boys would not inherit ... "The What Factor".

"The What Factor" is the default male response to an incoming female-generated message. It is their standard response. An example: wife says, "I am going to the grocery store." Husband responds, "What?" Or: Wife says, "I am having a kidney removed." Husband responds, "What?"

My sons have begun to display signs of TWF. Repeating myself is the better part of my daily communications.

Frustration has forced me to try several solutions. First, I tried not saying anything after one of them said "what." On occasion, this was successful.

In those moments of silence, the message seemed to "catch up" and they would respond. Other times, the message was lost and there was just silence.

Minutes would pass. Then I would ask, "Don't you want to know what I said?" He would look at me bewildered and say, "What?" Ahhhhh!

Then it struck me. I had to be more obvious about my need to be heard. I tried this technique on my husband. I began by saying, "Honey, I want to tell you something." I was stunned when his response was, "What?"

How could this be? Where had I failed? I thought about it for weeks until I was watching an episode of "The Human Body" on The Discovery Channel. You know, the one where the police officer is standing in front of a building that he knows is about to explode?

The narrator explained how the man's body sensed the impending danger and notified the disaster area of his brain. This then triggered the adrenal glands to send energy to his muscles so that he could run and avoid the danger.

That was it! When I said, "Honey I want to tell you something," my husband's mental reaction was: "Oh crap, she's going to want me to listen to her and then respond in some way that shows I not only understood her but I am tracking with her feelings and am deeply connected with her needs."

The disaster area of his brain went on alert. As his body cycled through it's preprogrammed response, he had missed what I said.

I don't know that I will ever get used to living with TWF, but I have cultivated a respect for its effectiveness.

Yesterday, my husband was explaining the oxygen sensor repair he was doing on our car and I responded, "What?"

I'm pretty certain that it spared me the explanation of how he replaced the intake hose.

And last evening during my favorite TV show, one of the boys was yelling to me from another room, asking for a ride to someplace.

I hollered back, "What?" His dad took him.

Karen Zenor Johnson is a member of Writers at the Portage and lives in Portage with her family.