The Tyranny of the Tantrum

As the parent of a small child -- who is apparently entering the "terrible twos" a few months early -- I tend to put things in that context sometimes.

What we're seeing from the health care town halls, what we've seen from the "birthers" and what we saw during the campaign is essentially what I call "Tyranny of the Tantrum," which many parents encounter at the onset of the "terrible twos."

You've been warned about the "terrible twos," but you may be unprepared for this rite of passage if your child has been cooperative up until now. The stage doesn't always begin exactly on your child's second birthday. Development experts say it can strike as early as 18 months and as late as 30 months (though some angelic children never go through this phase). How do you know if you're in the midst of the TTs? Look for new signs of assertiveness from your toddler. Hallmark behaviors to watch for: He may insist on doing exactly what you've told him not to do or throw himself down on the floor in a fit of temper if he doesn't get his way. His demands may alternately frustrate and amuse you. At times, for example, he'll likely ask for something that he doesn't even want, just to see if he has enough power to get it.

See, small children like Dylan -- who is just 21 months old -- sometimes have trouble with change. They don't like it. They don't like it when their environment changes; like when it's time get out of the tub, dry off and put pajamas on, or when it's time to stop playing long enough for a diaper change.

Put another way, they don't like transitions -- that uncertain period between the end of one thing and the beginning of another, when they're not quite sure what's happening, where they're going or what's next. They just want to either keep doing what they were doing or go back to where they were, because it's what they've gotten accustomed to.

Transitions -- putting the brakes on one activity and starting right up with another one -- are tough on toddlers. Bedtime may be one of the hardest, but others, such as leaving the playground, having to stop playing to get in the car for errands, or being left in a babysitter's care as Mom and Dad walk out the door can also elicit tears and tantrums. After all, toddlers live in the moment, don't have a real concept of time, and are only just beginning to understand that separations don't last forever, says Gail Reichlin, executive director of the Parents Resource Network in Chicago.

On top of that, they don't have the language skills to say, "I'm right in the middle of something. Just give me five minutes." Instead, they often resort to tears or tantrums when told it's time to stop what they're doing. Temperament also plays a part in how your little one handles transitions. Some children, just like some grown-ups, oppose anyone who wants them to make a change.

When they are unable to keep things just as they are, they throw a tantrum. They cry, kick and scream. They go limp, or rigid, making it difficult to move them. They hold on to whatever's handy, and don't let go.

Being the adult, the grow-up, the parent, etc., I know we can't stay in the same place indefinitely. I know sooner or later, we have to put the groceries in the car and go home, or stop playing long enough to have dinner. I know that the transition -- whether from the grocery cart to the car, or from the bathtub to the towel -- is a necessary part of moving on to what's next, even if my two-year-old doesn't.

As the adult, it's my job to move us forward through the transition, into what's next. Otherwise, I subject myself to the tyranny of the tantrum. That means I allow the two-year-old to dictate what the rest of the family will do, just because he kicked and screamed and carried on.

That's what the town halls have devolved into -- the tyranny of the tantrum. The behavior we're seeing is basically the extreme of the Republican base kicking and screaming because they believe that if they throw a big enough tantrum, they can hold off change, turn back the transition period already begun, and keep things the way they are -- or go back to the way they were.

What's needed right now are more adults who are not so intimidated or stunned by the tantrum that they attempt to placate the tantrum-throwers by trying to keep thing basically the way they are. What we need are grown-ups who know how to move forward through, and in spite of, the tantrum.

I call it the "football carry." It's when we pick up the tantruming toddler under one arm -- in such a way that he doesn't hurt himself or anyone else -- and carry him forward with us. It doesn't mean the tantrum ends right away. It means that we know it will end, because it always does, but we don't wait for it to end before moving on.

That's necessary because, as any parent knows, sometimes there's just no reasoning with a tantruming toddler. We can, lovingly, explain that we understand their frustration, but we have to move on. And that's about it. We know what the tantrum thrower doesn't know or care to know that the present circumstances are unsustainable. We can no more stay at the playground forever than we can afford a health care system that keeps costing more while helping fewer and fewer people, or pretend that we can continue moving toward a two-track economy, where one track prospers at the expense of the other.

Neither can we turn back the clock (nor should we) to a time when the president and most of the Supreme Court (to name two seats of power), were guaranteed to be white -- something many townhall screamers, birthers, and McCain/Palin rally attendees would like to return to, whether they say as much or not.

Now, people who don't know that Medicare is a government program probably aren't reacting to what President Obama is actually proposing. They may believe some of the disinformation opponents of health care reform are spreading, like the claim that the Obama plan will lead to euthanasia for the elderly. (That particular claim is coming straight from House Republican leaders.) But they're probably reacting less to what Mr. Obama is doing, or even to what they've heard about what he's doing, than to who he is.

That is, the driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that's behind the "birther" movement, which denies Mr. Obama's citizenship. Senator Dick Durbin has suggested that the birthers and the health care protesters are one and the same; we don't know how many of the protesters are birthers, but it wouldn't be surprising if it's a substantial fraction.

And cynical political operators are exploiting that anxiety to further the economic interests of their backers.

Does this sound familiar? It should: it's a strategy that has played a central role in American politics ever since Richard Nixon realized that he could advance Republican fortunes by appealing to the racial fears of working-class whites.

So, we move forward, through the tantrum, and carry tantrum-thrower with us.

Eventually, the two-year-old will adjust to whatever we do and wherever we go next. The kicking and screaming will stop, if only because it's tiring and futile, and perhaps because even a two-year-old eventually realizes that the future he was carried into while kicking and screaming all the way isn't all that bad. In fact, he might even find something to like about it.

Until the next transition. Then, we have to be the grow-ups again.

The health-care "debate" in town halls across the country desperately needs more grown-ups to carry us forward, to the change that we need.

The other option is submitting to the tyranny of the tantrum.

[Images via hyperscholar and bobster855 @ Flickr.]

Comments

[poorpearl]

But toddlers don't carry guns.

[George Yeager]

In 1973, at the University I attended, I observed campus dissent over the Viet Nam war. The only voices I heard were anit-war voices. No one else was allowed a voice, nor did they dare speak up.

[amaycatbaker]

Your Article inspired my cartoon.http://tomekeeper.com/funnies/funny20.html

[vooter]

Do me a favor--please just tell us how you're going to pay for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, fancy new fighter planes, veterans benefits, education, new infrastructure, AND comprehensive health care (along with everything else in the U.S. budget), when we have a national debt (including future obligations) of $50 trillion, a GDP of approximately $14 trillion, and revenues (taxes, trade, etc.) of only $3 trillion??? You people just don't understand the meaning of the word BROKE, do you?

[MAUIMONKEY]

Answer: get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, cancel the fighter planes, cut all the insrance companies out of health care in America, import drugs from Canada, cancel the Bush tax cuts for the rich, raise capital gains taxes to match income tax rates, and prosecute every company or individual who uses offshore accounts and subsidiaries to avoid taxes. Make EVERYONE pay their fare share or shut them down. The US will be in great shape in about 2 years. The rich and their waterboys will scream, but that's what you expect from those who have had it all for so long, and see it slipping away.
"As the adult, it's my job to move us forward through the transition, into what's next. Otherwise, I subject myself to the tyranny of the tantrum. That means I allow the two-year-old to dictate what the rest of the family will do, just because he kicked and screamed and carried on."

[topkatnc]

The way these people are acting is shameful...The person with the picture of our President with a hitler mustache is not an American....No true American would do that....If it were up to me they would be deported....Not once in the past 8 yrs when Bush was in office did I see anyone doing that....and he would deserve it....but that is no the American way....Show some CLASS......

[zippy01]

Would you deport all of the ill.egal.s? Maybe just those American citizens who voice an unpleasant opinion deserve deportation, then they could sneak in and get left alone and even rewarded.

[scrutiny1]

Exactly.

[Aaror]

A republican would "tut-tut," about the football carry and loudly proclaim that the child really needs a spanking-wonder if we should take their advice???
I like what you said about the tantrumer eventually accepting and growing to like the change the adults imposed, changes like medicare...

[oncethere]

Very true and very sad.

[NJmikeV]

I been to football games and have seen them TV. There are 80,000 people at the stadium. On TV, the camera zooms in on the one a**hole with no shirt on in sub- freezing weather.

The reasonable outnumber the crazies.

This does not mean that we are to stand still while the crazies steal the show. Call Write. Show up. Donate

It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds” -Samuel Adams

[BlackJAC]

Don't even get me started on fanboys. Make a movie based on a 1980s toy line with requisite 21st-century updates to make it appealing to 21st-century kids, and suddenly the phrase "[Movie director] raped my childhood!" gets bandied about like a vowel. Tell them to put their money where their mouths are and write a better version of the movie, and they scream that being a tastemaker doesn't require knowing how to write. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are more reasonable.

[haroldballs]

I didn't see anyone condemn Code Pink when they attacked a Marine recruitment station.

[NJmikeV]

Attacked? A bunch of little old ladies "attacked" the Marines ?

[haroldballs]

They vandalized the office repeatedly, blocked recruits, and displayed anti American anti military signs. What these people are doing is trying to be heard instead of railroaded into Marxism.

[BlackJAC]

Because that never happpened.

[Garioch]

That wasn't a transition they were hoping to stop, that was a transition they were hoping to effect, they had logical ideas, put them forward in a coherent manner and then protested.
I am however intrigued by the vision of Marines cowering under the intense assault of a brigade of elderly ladies dressed in pink. The few, the proud, the rather frightened of old ladies.

[entrenchedhoosier]

These tantrumites are not convincing the 18 to 30 year old generation that voted last year.
Out with the old and in with the new!

[yliza]

Nor to those of us older folks who did the same.

[entrenchedhoosier]

I am in agreement with you.
I will soon be 52.
I knew many people a decade or two older than myself, who campaigned for candidate Obama with me.
But the mini baby boom of the eighties is having a profound effect on the current voting majority of recent elections.
I will be involved next year in maintaining and adding more "young" people to the the voting ranks.

[Robt]

A refreshing worded view of the situation.

There was a day where they would call this parenting oversight as Liberal elitism.

The only problem is that these "tantruming two year olds" are abused, hateful and fearful beguiled, fully grown adults. Ah, but in this age of modern technology, adult diapers are produced and available.

[NationalTreasure]

sorry Terrance:

this is something more treacherous than any terrible twos tantrum -- these are the seeds of anarchy and the insurrection

[lcdbsez]

national --

Exactly.

It's made to smell different -- that's all.

[themidnightreview]

For some reason I am reminded of the civil rights movement. Those who opposed desegregation turned water hoses and dogs on peaceful protests, the National Guard had to escort 9 students to Little Rock Central High School, etc. etc.

These people opposing health care reform are acting off emotion (and are instigated by the likes of conservative pundits like those found on Fox News), and are not rationally thinking of the end result. They are thinking about themselves, and only themselves, not America. Their big question is If "I" am going to lose this, or "I" am going to lose that...

[TJWombat]

Great metaphor for the right wing these days and their enablers in the media. It's too bad that we live in such an intellectually dishonest and embarrassingly immature society, because it sure would be nice to hear some adults weigh in rather than accept the consensual notion of "politics as usual" especially when they have sunk to such an abysmal and childish level. I've said for a while now that there are going to be people who don't like change and who just can't (or don't want to) get their brains around what's necessary in what is obviously a sea change in terms of economics and politics worldwide, and it's not our business to coddle them or humor them by accepting their arguments of false equivalency. What we should in fact be doing is dragging them kicking and screaming into the 21st century so that we can get on with fixing our obviously broken system of government and get on with living, for Christ's sake!