I saw a meme the other day, that said: Meme them until they cry, then make memes about them crying. I actually liked it, but I didn’t save it. (I did a search for it, and found it, but then I had to stop myself from making a better-looking meme of the same quote. The struggle is real.)
It turns out it is less than half the country who are throwing post-election temper tantrums because they are emotional two-year-olds. But because we (the collective we) did them a disservice by coddling their emotions when children, instead of saying, “Suck it up, buttercup,” we now have adults throwing temper tantrums. If there is ever a time to say, “Suck it up, buttercup,” it is now.
Temper tantrums in physical two-year-olds and emotional two-year-olds alike are always a demand for attention. When my children were two, I just closed the door and let them kick and scream without an audience or attention. They quickly learned that the temper tantrum demand for attention didn’t work, and gave up on that strategy. (I told them to ask nicely, whatever it is they needed. They learned.) The emotional two-year-olds will learn it too, but in the meantime, we will have to ignore the screaming. Well, we (the collective we) brought it on ourselves by our narcissitic parenting. The best thing we can do is not make the same mistake of coddling destructive emotional displays with the actual two-year-olds of this generation. Then our children will have peace and maturity in their generation.
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