Tantruming Toddlers and Liberals, Oh My!

Friends, when Mini-Whiggy was two years old, he was the perfect mix of angel, explorer, and pure evil demon bent upon the destruction of all those around him. He was a delightfully treacherous adventure every day. It was fascinating to watch him explore his surroundings and test his boundaries. It was challenging to observe him test the rules and his ability to manipulate the environment and people in his life. Like all toddlers his job at two years old was to begin to discover who he was as a separate person from me and Mrs. Whiggy.

Mini-Whiggy’s biggest challenge at that age was that he lacked the vocabulary to express himself and to get his needs met, as well as the behavioral repertoire to do the same. As a baby, all he had to do was cry and we would try to figure out what he needed until the crying ceased. That was simple at first. He had three needs: to be fed, to be cleaned and to be held. As he got older those needs expanded and the same simple cry would not work. So, naturally, he developed several variations of cries. He had a cry for “I am hungry”. He had one for “Change Me”. He also had ones for “Hold me”, “Play with me”, “I want a specific toy”, “I want one of my sisters” and on and on. My favorite cry, though, was “I feel like being an @sshole and watching my puppets dance”. Mrs. Whiggy says he got that from me. I cannot dispute that.

As he got older, his needs got more specific and crying was no longer an effective behavior. He developed words and found that those could get his needs met more efficiently. However, he didn’t have all the words he needed and would often become frustrated. When he got frustrated he fell back upon what had worked for him as a baby, crying. But he had learned that normal crying would not work. He had to up his game. Crying became full on tantrums. His attempts at a good tantrum were adorable. He discovered the joy of throwing toys, throwing himself on the ground and the ever heartening two-year-old-grimace-of-death. I am pretty sure he even tried to put on a vagina costume at one point until he realized how childish that was and how incredibly stupid he looked.

Being good parents, the Mrs. and I knew that the best way to end the tantrums were to make them ineffective. Being a trained psychologist also helped. As did scotch. When his tantrums didn’t work, we helped him find the words he needed. Soon he found that asking for what he wanted got his needs met and the tantrums stopped for the most part. He still tried his tantrums when he couldn’t get what he wanted and when we said no. After awhile though, those petered out as well. So far, he hasn’t tried writing placards and burning down the neighbor’s house. Fingers crossed he doesn’t. They are getting pretty annoyed whenever I do it.

This weekend, Mrs. Whiggy and I were looking through some old pictures of Mini-Whiggy as a toddler and reminiscing about those delightful days. As we were drinking our way through our PTSD the news showed coverage of the most recent “we didn’t get what we want” protests in St. Louis. Then it dawned on me … Liberals are toddlers! They display the same behaviors and a very similar smell.

When Mini-Whiggy didn’t get the food he liked, he threw it on the floor and started screaming. When liberals didn’t get the election results they wanted, they threw away the results and screamed “he is not my president”.  When Mini-Whiggy didn’t get the toy he wanted, he tried to break the toy he had and everything else around him. When the liberals didn’t get the election results overthrown, they trashed banks and cars and whatever else was in their way. When Mini-Whiggy thought something was unfair, he yelled and screamed. When liberals think something is unfair, like oh I don’t know, a court case, they take to the streets, burn buildings and attack police. Seems like toddler behavior to me. However, they aren’t quite as cute.

Although, there is a flaw in my theory. Mini-Whiggy was smart enough to realize that tantrums do not work. They never have, nor will they ever be an effective way of getting what he wants.  Instead, he has learned truly mature skills like cogent arguments based on 7-year-old logic, cuteness manipulation, divide and conquer (his parents) and the ever-effective keeping asking until you say yes or threaten me with being sold into slavery. In short, Mini-Whiggy has learned the skills all adults need to survive. Liberals have not yet learned those skills. They keep tantruming (I get to make up words) and expecting it will somehow work.

Luckily, just like toddlers they have the attention span of brain-injured jelly-fish. Do you remember the occupy movement? They don’t. They saw something shiny among their filth of their blanket forts, got distracted and moved onto another toy. Do you remember what the Black Lives Matter
“movement” was supposed to stand for? Neither do they. They were so fascinated by the fires they lit that they looted some marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate and started making smores. When the fires went out, they moved onto the next thing. Remember the Million Vagina March? They do too, they just can’t remember what it was about except for how cool it was to play dress-up and go for a long walk with mommy and vagina-daddy. Remember when they liked destroying giant historical action figures because they were upset by them? Apparently, they lost interest when they realized that they had to clean-up their mess or be sent to bed early …in a cage. I wonder what the next tantrum will be about? Because we all know there will be more until we somehow teach them that such behavior is not ok for big boys and girls … and all other 87 gender choices.

Do not fret, my friends: Having raised three children through toddlerhood and having taught numerous parenting classes, I believe I have a solution. Let’s gather the liberals together, put them in a pull-up, give them a binky and a blanky, sing them a lullaby and tuck them in with their favorite stuffy until they grow the F up.

(Remember to subscribe! Look its right there …to your right. Go ahead. It wont hurt …much.)