Dear Two Year Old MiddleChild aka Mr. McScreamingScreechyPants,

Here we are at the intersection of Want and Need. As a baby your “wants” and your needs” are one and the same and largely simple in their nature. Then you reach that awesome age where you start to realize that there is life beyond what you need. Your wants go off one way, and your needs go off in the other.

You have discovered Want. Opinion. Independence. Communication. And The Very Loud Screaming of the Screamy Things.

I understand. Even as adults with much larger vocabularies we have a difficult time voicing what we want, what we need, and what we feel when those wants and needs don’t match up. There are entire books dedicated to the topic of helping adults deal with these things.

You are two. You have been out here in this big confusing world for just two years. You have been speaking for less than a year. Your sentences are both amusingly charming and often peppered with complete nonsense as you try to fill in the spaces that contain words that you don’t yet remember or understand. I cannot mistake early communication with emotional maturity.

You feel everything fully. Every pain, every frustration, every need, every happiness, every sadness. You have not built up the thicker skin that comes with perspective and experience. You are open and vulnerable to every emotion.

When you scream “no no no” as I take you out of the swing and carry you for a nap, you are not trying to manipulate me. You are telling me that you do not want a nap, even as you need one. You are communicating with me using the words you have only so recently discovered. You are sharing your frustration. You are asking me to change things, to strip away the tired and grouchy feelings that come with sleepiness, to extend those hours of swinging in the sunshine. You are asking me to be the God that I was when you were a baby and I could simply make everything Okay. You are discovering the limitations of both you and me, and you are protesting this with all the fury and passion that your little body can muster.

I do not need to fix this, you are not broken. These are your growing pains, not your character defects. I do not need to break your tantrum. I do not need to change your tantrum. I do not need to ignore your tantrum. I do not need to “indulge” your tantrum. I do not need to derail your tantrum with bribes. I do not need to be ashamed of your tantrum. I need to be there for you as your calm while you get it all out so that you can return to balance and once the storm has passed I can provide you with the words for what it is that you were feeling so very strongly.

I cannot fix this with anger.

I cannot fix this with love.

I cannot fix this with annoyance.

I cannot fix this with talking.

I cannot fix this.

I do not need to fix this. This is the way every child grows. This is the intersection of want and need where those two things go off in their own directions. This is your mind learning to cope with the frustration of those wants and needs.

You are doing exactly what you need to do at this point in your life. You are exploding with joy, with anger, with sadness, with happiness, with glee, with giggles, with amusement, with understanding, with words, emotions, feelings and milestones.

My job right now is to simply be there with you by your side as you explode in these many directions. To understand that your angers and frustrations and temper are not a judgement or indictment of me. They are not a failure or shortcoming in my parenting. They are a sign of your growth, your progression, your rapid and uncomfortable change from infancy to childhood.

My job is to simply be that calm that you need to learn to be. I cannot teach you to be calm through my own anger. I cannot teach you to be calm through my own frustration. I cannot teach you to be calm by ignoring your emotions. I cannot go through this for you. And I cannot keep you from passing through this place that we all pass through. To keep you from this would be to leave you to deal with all of those difficulties at every stage of your life.

All I can do is know my place here beside you as grow and remember that I cannot fix this because this is not broken. This is exactly how you should be right now at two.  You are doing exactly what you should be doing, and you are doing it with admirable gusto and volume.

Understanding this means that instead of looking at your tantrums with annoyance or upset, I look on them with empathy. I know, little critter. It’s rough. I struggle with finding those intersections of want and need, myself, sometimes. It’s okay. I love you, and I’m sorry you’re struggling right now.

❤ Mama