Crybabies

For months now, my daughter's daycare provider has dropped a series of unsubtle hints that A. cries without much provocation. And for months, I've ignored these occasional unsolicited comments, telling myself that she was judging her too harshly or that she was simply envious of the fact that my kid is a thousand times smarter than hers. (I didn't say my explanations made sense, of course.)

This evening, though, I saw first-hand evidence to support her theory. While attending a toddler birthday party -- which is in itself suggests a tornado of tears and petty violence -- I noticed that A. cried more, and for less valid reasons, than all the other child guests combined. She wept over a yellow balloon picked up by another child; she yowled insanely over an Elmo doll she'd been neglecting for five full minutes until someone else expressed an interest; she bleated madly when I dared to pay attention to a seven-week-old infant lolling and drooling on the couch. It was horrifying. I've seen her around more than a few other children before -- say, at the park, or at the library's story time, or at the local toddler open gym -- but never in a situation that demanded that she "be social," whatever that means for a 2-year-old. I spent most of the afternoon rolling my eyes and saying uncharitable things about my own child to perfect strangers.

My indignity was short-lived. My mother, as it happens, has been visiting for the past week, and she reminded me afterward that when I was her age, I was a renowned crybaby. So easily and comically provoked was I that when I was two or three, the pair of slightly older kids who lived next door would routinely drop by just to pick up one or two of my toys and provoke one of my great fits. When I was four, my uncle passed away from cancer, and I was sent to stay for a week with some cousins who -- instantly sensing my vulnerabilities -- apparently had me crouched on the floor, caterwauling and making an ass of myself for the duration of the visit. And so on and so forth, the stories cascaded from my mother's giggling memory as I remembered that I'd heard all this before.

I was a crybaby; my daughter is a crybaby. I suppose it wouldn't be a stretch to say that my profound embarrassment today had, in the end, almost nothing to do with my daughter.

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Crybabies

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