GERM BAG: Tot Darwinism

My kid is a tough little broad. She's only two, but we can already tell she will not be taking any crap from any age mates. In fact, she just ambled home from pre-preschool with one of those Ident-A-Kid cards bearing a mug shot so fierce that we're certain no other two-year-olds would dare get up in her grill.

It's the older kids who worry me. The older kids are out to get her.

Ok, not all of them. Just some of them. But a large enough segment of that population that it gives me pause. Not just for her, but for our species. What does it mean for humanity when little kids want to take out littler kids? It can't be good.

The tot Darwinism kicked in as soon as Eve arrived on the planet. She was just a few weeks old and we were in the company of two siblings, one age eight and one around three, the baby of the family. I had to leave the room to run and fetch a rather hulking bassinet, and there were no other adults in the house. I asked the older child to please watch my motionless bundle of larvae for 15 seconds--20 tops. He agreed.

The instant I was out of eye shot, the three-year-old struck. He shoved past his big brother and violently depressed the couch next to baby Eve so that she rolled like a sausage into the back of it, face mashed helplessly into the upholstery. When I ran back into the room, the brothers were fighting and my baby looked like she was going to suffocate. I was just relieved little dude hadn't depressed the couch on the other side of her, or he'd have catapulted her onto -- or into -- the coffee table.

Now, that three-year-old comes from a stellar family, and overall seems like a good kid, a normal kid. He's no demon seed -- just slightly mischievous. And yet, this? This?

Yes, this. It's rampant, I'm finding. It's built into a lot of them. The couch incident stands out only because it represents my first glimpse into the unsavory world of whippersnapper-on-tinier-whippersnapper crime.

Several other such incidents have followed and thus I have learned to stay hyper vigilant around the smalls. At crowded playgrounds, I move from structure to structure with Eve, my eyes sweeping over the crowd to spot them, the one or two diminutive assailants. I keep them in my sights once I ID them, and as they draw closer to Eve, so do I. Sometimes my proximity thwarts them, sometimes not. Sometimes I need to hold out a protective arm to keep a sneaky hip check or punch from connecting, causing Eve to give me that look of utter dismay that says, "Why? Why would they do that?"

They are always there, these kids. Usually boys but sometimes girls. As I watch them, they also watch me, looking for the window, hoping I'll take a cell phone call or just go sit and read People magazine. And if I do look away, within a minute or two, more often than not, there is some sort of little-kid blitzkrieg.

I am not by nature a hovercraft. None of this comes naturally to me. Hell, I was spawned by parents who dropped me at random parks in random towns when they wanted time to themselves, coming back for me sometimes after dark. I did so much unattended roaming the streets in our questionable little burg that I carried a Coke bottle with me, just in case.

There is no well-worn pathway in my brain for how one appropriately protects a child; practically daily, I have to actively think it through, step by step. And that's ok. I just thought it'd be the beefy molesters and recently released prisoners I'd have to guard against, not people no taller than a file cabinet.

It happened just the other day. We were at a party, my husband, Eve and I, and there was a girl of maybe nine in a playroom by herself. I could smell it on her, the compulsion. So I stayed in there with she and Eve as they played with baby dolls. But sure enough, as soon as I turned my head to talk to another party goer, BAM, Eve would get a hard pillow smack to the face, or the girl would suddenly grab her ankle, yank her to the ground. And Eve would look up at me, confused.

I don't want to believe it's pure evil, or some kind of lurking Columbine-kid-ism among that much of the under-10 set. Large chunks of my brain want to believe that maybe, hopefully, it's a birth order thing. Maybe the youngins with older siblings are so used to getting pummeled, that's what they think you do with littler kids: beat the Fruit Roll-Ups out of them.

My older siblings were certainly guilty. I remember my sister holding me down and tickling me way past the point of sobbing (me sobbing - not her). I also remember waking up in the middle of the night to a cluster of siblings trying to quietly slide my hand into a bucket of warm water so I'd pee the bed and then experience the resultant trauma. Maybe it's... natural.

And we can't discount the baby-of-the-family thing as a factor. The baby as jealous aggressor, the baby who is so used to getting cooed at and fussed over, that when a younger kid saunters into view threatening to steal the love, the interloper must be destroyed immediately if not sooner. I think that might have been at play the day tiny Eve got mashed into the back of a couch, victim of a tyke strike.

And yet, I was the baby of five and I distinctly remember not wanting to destroy any of my underlings. I had the opposite reaction to babies and kids younger than me: I wanted to hide from them. They scared me. What did they want? What were they trying to say? I didn't know, couldn't tell, so off into the next room I ran, pretending to be very, very busy. Or tired.

Kids. They prey on the weak, just like animals. Well, some of them do. Maybe it's just straight-up Darwinism channeling through them. Maybe the rest of us have learned to squelch the urge to stamp out those who are slower, smaller or sicker than us, but little kids, lacking impulse control, haven't. Or maybe it's just that children are an alternate society unto themselves, one that we don't understand and never will.

All I know is that for now, I stand near and I protect. And Eve lives on. Pretty soon, though, my close presence at the playgrounds and the parties is going to get her labeled a dork, a wuss - or both. I'm going to have to stop in a year, perhaps two.

Or maybe not. Maybe I will continue. Maybe I will be there at, say, junior high band practice with her, my arms out making a big C around her, a giant second ribcage that will keep a-holes from elbowing her while she tries to master the vibraslap.

And maybe I'll have to do it at her wedding, too, in case the bridesmaids get envious and try to take her down.

Because you know bridesmaids. They're just awful.

Comments

[Mcluhansghost]

I would not fret too much Suz. Having come from a family of four children, left as a child for an hour at a rest stop holding only an ice cream cone and now with five children of my own - I think I turned out O.K. - twitch . . . twitch . . tick.

[reallife4me]

For whatever reasons some kids need to find a perceived weaker link to take out. I have two older ones at home and a tot. Although they show more kindness and empathy toward the littlest one than not. I still have to be a sentinel because competition for mommy's attention brings out the devil in my older ones in this way.... trying to be mom/dad and putting little guy in time outs, holding back toys until he cries, or ignoring him when he's called them five million times already. Oh the torture.... Anyway, I lived through it with my other 8 siblings and managed to love each of them dearly, and I'm sure my little guy will also, right(???) Anyway, most times he gives out to each of the older ones as good or better than what he gets. The family circus continues....the joy!!!

[Brian Jacobson]

Don't let other children push Eve around. I think Tae Kwan Doe classes are a must!

[Thilde Tarver Smith]

I can remember what it was like to be a shorter than "normal" kid in school. I constantly was picked on, bullied, taunted .... But, I survived. You learn ways to cope, stand up for yourself, get a sense of humor (to some degree) about it ... Now that I have children I get to see it all over again, but from the perspective of a parent. There are days when I know my 14 year old son and 12 year old daughter wish above all else that I would just go away. However, I think they would tell you that I'm a pretty cool mom and I tend to let them work things out on their own . OK, not always. Yes, I did run out onto the football field when my son got sacked (in flag football.) I will only make that mistake once. Boy did I get chewed out for that - by my son. And I've done the same thing to my daughter in soccer. With age comes wisdom ... mine. Thanks to events over the past few years, I have learned that my kids are pretty good at taking care of themselves and sometimes even others. They stand up to bullies - for themselves and their friends. OK, so this gets them suspended from school. Kids learn, they adjust ... and so do we parents. It's rough; it's scary ... it's pretty much like a rollercoaster... but as we age, comes wisdom - parent wisdom.

[ChittyChittyBangBang]

With children of different ages, I have witnessed some form of this. It's not malicious, but rather seems an early understanding by a child who must possess all the stuffed animals in the house that abstracting said plush toys from his younger sibling is like, well, "taking candy from a baby."

[Shotgun Mary]

I remember this from when I was a child. I was the big sister. I constantly tried to do away with my little brother. I remember it having something to do with him having supplanted my position as only child. My husband was also the little brother to an older sister. He will sometimes tell me about how he tortured his older sister. I maintain that if he wasn't living in abject fear for his existence, then his sister hadn't done her job.

[LitDr2B]

I have a feeling it's a bit of all the reasons you list. I would lean toward the "alternate society...we don't understand and never will." Wait until she gets in first grade or so. Then the clique thing kicks in. And good luck even attempting to understand the arbitrary, byzantine codes and classifications through which they decide which other children to make outcasts. The pillow-batting and hip checks will be welcome after the mental torture and sheer banal cruelty that these girls inflict upon each other as part of their quotidian interactions.

[CBETTS]

By being observant you not only protect Eve, but you also have the opportunity (age appropriate) to teach her appropriate behavior, and how to respond when pushed or hit. Little kid's first response is to push, hit, and generally I think they desire control, probably out of frustration as to how to respond to whatever is going on. All of you will survive!