the unbearable rightness of being (a toddler)
an unstoppable force (2yo) meets a very moveable, sad object (me) + boundaries! a buzzword but also a true word
On most days, being a parent is difficult, but every so often, once in a blue moon, it’s fucking impossible.
Sometimes that blue moon lasts for days. Months. We’re in one now. The bluest, most sad moon there ever was.
The terrible twos, they call it, named after how your child views you as parents: The Terrible Two. Except kids say ‘twos’ because they’re idiots who don’t understand plurals.
These days, the only thing that makes our son angrier than not getting what he wants is actually getting what he wants. All outcomes are bad, nothing is good, he is falling apart, and so are we.
I often liken it to negotiating with a terrorist, but that’s far too generous. Terrorists have clear and consistent demands. Not so with Wilder.
Like, imagine you’re watching a hostage negotiator movie where a criminal — Clive Owen — has taken over a big building with lots of hostages.
The negotiator – Denzel – gets the police dept to bring a helicopter for the bad guy, but when Clive Owen sees the helicopter he gets so pissed and screams, "NOOOOO HELICOPTER."
“You don’t want a helicopter?” Denzel asks.
“NO HELICOPTER,” Clive Owen screams.
As Clive Owen watches the helicopter fly off, big globs of water tears start streaming down his face. Then, he screams at the top of his lungs, “HELICOPTER!!”
Denzel, pissed now, brings the helicopter back.
“HELICOPTER!!!!” Clive Owen screams, again.
“Yes. This is a helicopter. Do you want it?” Denzel asks.
“YAH HUH” Clive Owen says. He’s on the roof now, with the ‘copter and hostages. Clive Owen runs up to the helicopter and, with no delay, pushes it off the building. “NO HELICOPTER!!!!”
What follows is a journey that led to day that led to a revelation. Join me, if you wanna.
Cars
It started a few months back when we got Wilder the cars McQueen and Mater from the should have won Best Oscar film “Cars”. Soon after, the resourceful delinquent had somehow gotten his hands on matching mini-versions of each. Baby Mater, the rumors go, he pilfered from daycare, while the origin story of Baby McQueen remains a mystery.
IF ANY OF THOSE FOUR TOY CARS goes missing EVEN FOR A SECOND he forgets how to breathe. Entire days have been spent trying to find one or more of those cars. They are always, somehow, behind a door that you definitely looked behind but whatever.
When we plop into the rocking chair to read some books at bedtime, he's got all four cars with him. He’ll immediately hide them under his legs as if looters from a neighboring village might come and plunder them at any second. At least one of the cars will slip from the confines of his underlegs and fall to the ground at which point he’ll go, “OH NO CAR.”
We’ll pick them up and, would you look at the clock, its time to sleep. He demands that all four of the cars come with him to bed which has brought exactly zero joy to our family. They are loud and if the baby ones fall out through the rails of his crib, well, there goes the day and most of the week too.
This child will sleep on an airplane hurtling to the ground. How, I beg, can he hear baby Mater fall while passed out in his crib?
Though I do have a theory: he is their mama, aware on a deep spiritual level what is happening to the pairs of Maters and McQueens at all times.
None of this is the actual problem.
The actual problem is that he, no longer a mini person made up entirely of squishy cheek, has gained sentience.
Meaning, every battle of wits where he, say, wants to eat mac and cheese in the bathtub, and we say no, matters, like, a lot. And yes, I’ve read the science and AM POSITIVE that how we react as parents in these situations will determine the person he ultimately becomes. There is no doubt in the literature about this don’t bother checking.
Our latest battlefront has been the TV. He’s hooked. Not Cars exactly, but something better. Smarter.
The problem comes when it's time to stop and, for example, eat dinner. Lauren’s made what is frankly a bonafide banger of a meal – homemade pita + lamb + yogurt sauce – and this kid refuses to eat. Nay, refuses to even come and join us at the table.
“KEVA KAR,” he wails.
“No, it's time to eat.”
“KEVA KAR!!!” he says again.
“How about you read a book?”
“NO!! I Want Cars!” he says, heading straight to the basket of books and – yep, he’s flipped the book basket over. “BOOK,” he screams.
…Ok? Progress, we think. “Which book do you want?”
“NO! Car! Book!” Wilder screams.
He’s glitching, unaware of who or where he is in time and space, no longer asking for Clever Cars nor his own cars but something more existential: am I alive? do I matter? Will I make it to tomorrow?
No answers will suffice, because how can one truly CAR anything in this BOOK world?
help
I was losing hope, and fast. A learned helplessness had washed over me and, rather than try to deal, I did what I’d learned always worked in situations that sucked: disassociate!
Somehow, this made things worse.
Finally, I asked Sarah, the woman who runs our daycare, for advice. Within one minute, she responded with an incredible list of suggestions:
Stay firm and unwavering, like you are being deposed and cannot change a single word of your answer every time it’s asked.
The hard part of gentle or gentle-adjacent parenting is that for the first 5 years of your kid’s life it will appear to not be working, because they’re not afraid of you (which is good.)
Check in with yourself internally to see if you really care about the boundary or if you’re trying to feel a semblance of power (I often realize I’m caught in a power struggle w my kids about something I don’t care about.)
Keep a repertoire of phrases at the ready. Like, “That isn’t being offered to you right now” and “can you do it by yourself or do you need me to help you?”
Finally, don’t buy into the parenting scripts that want you to give lengthy affirmations about your child’s feelings; they are too little and he’ll just zone out.
Holy shit. Who knew that Sarah was also Jesus Christ for parents had just texted me a rough draft of the Baby Bible.
Besides the whole “it won’t work until they are five“ thing, I was very excited.
Why didn’t I do this sooner, you ask? Because I am a SENSITIVE MAN who you can bet your ass is gonna figure out what gentle/gentle-adjacent parenting is on his own. And no, we DON’T NEED DIRECTIONS to daddy-son yoga, I GOT IT.
Except I don’t got it. Precisely zero seconds later, I asked what gentle/gentle-adjacent parenting was — here’s her response.
“To be honest, gentle parenting has gotten really muddied and it’s hard to find resources with realistic tips for parents who aren’t robots with no emotional triggers or trauma of their own. I love the podcast “Unruffled” by Janet Lansbury. It’s a good amount of gentle parenting without falling into permissive parenting (no boundaries or rules).
A reckoning
The next morning, Lauren left for work at 630am. Knowing I’d be a goner unless I got a workout in pre-baby-wakeup, I got up at 5am and went to the gym. Blasting “Unruffled” at 1.2x speed I got my body swole and mind swole.
The episode on "Morning Meltdowns" was great - Janet, who, within ten minutes of me listening to her, had become my mentor guide sage prophet, was answering a letter from a mom about her four-year-old. The issue seemed like the same kind of negotiating-with-a-terrorist problem I'd been having with Wilder. Every morning, the letter writer's daughter would have a full meltdown, clinging to her mom's leg and wailing.
Janet’s answer was simple. Boundaries:
Decide what you’re going to allow your children to do, understand that they’re probably going to have a meltdown no matter what, that there’s really no getting around it. That if they’re expressing this, it’s the healthiest thing for them to do and something they need to clear to be able to be that person they need to be to do their day.
Boundaries! I didn't even know those were an option! Or maybe I did, and maybe I tried to enforce them, but Wilder’s all-out assault gaslit me into thinking that the boundaries were not just useless, but non-existent (“what do you mean ‘you tried to set a boundary, papa, I don’t remember that at all.”)
High on gentle parenting and endorphins, I got home from the gym at exactly 6:30amready to flex my new knowledge.
It started as it always does, with me waking him up and him saying "I want mammaaaaa" and I say "I know I want mama too everybody want a-mama," then turning on the light and following up with, "But i'm second best, right?"
No answer.
Brutal. Why not admit that I might be 2nd best? Why?
Fine. We read some books and goof and then head out into the living room and it hey maybe today will be great actually -
KEVA KARS.
lol jk.
I explain that we aren't watching that this morning.
KEVAKRSSSSS
“that's not an option right now,” I say, preparing already for any baby court depositions that may arise.
Now he starts freaking out and screaming for his cars, all of which are in his bedroom. I take him back there and say, “Here are your cars, do you want to get them?”
NO!
Well, I never.
“Ok, do you want to help me crack the eggs?” (this has ALWAYS worked in the past)
NO MY CARS.
We go back to the cars again but he doesn't want the cars.
I am at a loss, but then I remember, I am found. Janet has taught me what to do. Except its not really…working. He continues crying and, given my sensitivities to…everything, I decide to put my airpods back in for a little noise cancelling support.
And lo! behold! a miracle!
The podcast from earlier keeps playing, and Janet is still helping this woman with her daughter’s morning meltdowns, except it feels like she’s talking directly to me! She’s basically live coaching me through Wilder’s wailing like the classic plot of any 90s sitcom where one character is on a date and another, more suave character, is guiding them through what to do on that date via headphone.
“We can’t comfort our child while we’re separating. What gives them comfort is that we’re clear, we’re confident, we accept that they feel however they feel, and that we see it as healthy and okay and acceptable for them to be in floods of tears in the morning.”
I’d usually have folded like a paper airplane made by an idiot, but not today.
Today, I finish making breakfast. This stops his wails precisely zero percent. He's got real tears streaming down his face now. It's brutal. I cannot budge.
I sit with a plate of eggs and an english muffin and I put down one of those bowls that sticks to the table for him with the same. He will not sit though, as he continues crying. I WANT CARS
“That's not available to you right now.”
I begin eating as he continues screaming. It feels evil, like if someone was drowning and you were just sitting nearby eating a jar of peanut butter.
Except he’s not drowning. Not really. Or, well, he is, but everything feels like drowning right now and — I don’t know how the fuck to explain it the point is, I trust Janet.
I WANT CARS
That’s not available to you right now.
I WANT CARS
That’s not available to you right now.
I WANT BRARS
That’s not available to you right now.
I WANT BREAD
That’s not — wait what?
And here it was. A change. He was still wailing, but the tone was different.
“You want bread?”
Uhhuh.
In the hostage situation version of this, Denzel raises his eyebrows like, “now that’s a good sign.”
I hand him one half of the english muffin. He takes the tiniest bite any human has ever taken. The cries subside slowly, like there's a super long crossfade between two songs and the new one (bread) has started, but we're still hearing the final dregs of the old song (cars) too.
And then, it's over. He’s eating his bread with joy and just sorta bumping around, like he’s gaslit himself into forgetting about everything that’d just happened. I have won.
No, we have won.
"You wanna go for a walk?"
UHHUH
We put on his little socks and then his shoes but NO HE WANTS SPECIFIC SHOES THE CROCS so we put on the crocs and hey, let's bring Robert!
OH KAY
He finds Robert's collar and leash (a fav pastime) and we embark. He isn't just happy, he is giddy.
Janet was right. There was some demon in him that needed to be 'cleared' and now that it had, he was able to continue on with his day (this is science and it is true). It was gone and out of him and he was on the other side of it. And so was I.
Was this the secret to life? To simply let feelings be expressed, fully, and without judgment or, "Hey stop it’s ok you're ok?"
Trauma, Janet said in a different episode (all I do now is listen to her pod), happens when strong emotions from the past never get expressed. They get stuck in your nervous system and come back out when you're retriggered. That all sounds plausible! Is it true? Yes! Why else would Janet say so. Regardless, I’m game to believe it no frikkin problem.
We walk and I’m giddy too. It feels so so so different than what’d been happening for the past month. I feel connected to him and with him, like I understand him and he can tell that I do.
I drop him off at daycare and ride that high for the rest of the day. That afternoon, he didn’t ask for Clever Cars not even once.
The next day, we let him Clever Cars, because hey who cares TV is allowed sometimes right? RIGHT?
This was a few weeks back. Since that day, a few weeks back, we haven’t come anywhere near reaching a state of boundary bliss nirvana like what happened on the day cars became bread (a miracle, Janet Christ style)
But still, something shifted.
Before Janet, Wilder would become a baby McQueen and I’d react by becoming a baby Mater, both of us crying because we didn’t know what the hell else to do with all the pain in our mini-car bodies.
Now, Wilder is baby McQueen and I’m an adult human being parent who can help him not have a full on breakdown.
Janet gave me a story to make sense of what was happening, which helped me not shut down, which helped me stay connected to him and to the situation instead of disassociating the day away eating peanut butter in my brain.
I can’t tell how well I’m doing with any of this shit, though I am for sure more mindful of it all. Which makes me less hopeless. Not hopeful, exactly, but hopeish, which, given the Car-mama terrorist I’m dealing with, is probably the best I can ask for right about now.
Comments!
have you ever negotiated with a terrorist, like say clive owen or my son wilder?
seriously do you have tips for how to handle toddler tantrums? (plz don’t be annoying and tell me that what I was doing isn’t right I will do a lawsuit on u)
what’s your favorite clive owen movie? you can’t say bourne identity even though that field scene was so epic (also if u squint looking at this, doesn’t CO look like Tom Hanks?)
seems like everyone is talking about boundaries these days which for the record i’m not mad about I think it’s great and helpful! that’s not a question it’s just an observation. love that we’re all growing xoxo
do you dissociate in Situations That Suck (STS) or do you have different perhaps more evolved STS responses?
do you think i’m 2nd best to lauren y/y?
clive own is tom hanks is cars is lauren is helicopter is podcasts
Kids thrive on boundaries being set. It may not feel like it in the moment, and they’ll never verbalize it, but they absolutely need it, and subconsciously love it.
For STS--if both parents are home: my wife and I have a tag-in/tag-out system that has worked WONDERS. If Parent A is trying all the things, using Janet’s advice, and it’s not working, and things aren’t improving and/the parent is starting to lose their cool, they yell “TAG” (or whatever code word you want to use), and Parent B takes over immediately.
Just as important, if Parent B hears that Parent A is getting closer and closer to losing their cool, they can holler “TAG”, take over, and Parent A goes elsewhere to reset/calm down/woosah.
This takes 100% complete trust in a relationship. Meaning, Parent A can’t get offended if they’re getting tagged out. They, without hesitation, accept that Parent B truly has everyone’s best interests at heart, and there are no negative messages being sent by their partner tagging them out (this is the hard one for me).
Hope this helps! You’re doing awesome!