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Snarkin Larkin

Posted February 18, 2009

Valentine's Day approached, and how did Molly and I get ready for it? With a no-holds-barred fight. Two frustrating episodes with Larkin lit the fuse. Both involved the same dilemma -- when to draw an absolute line in dealing with Larkin's snarky behavior, and when to yield strategically. Many couples have one parent who tends to stand firm, and one who deals. Between Molly and me, she's principle and I'm pragmatism; she's the firm stander, and I'm, well, the caver.

It's Thursday evening, and I'm meeting a friend for dinner in half an hour. All day Larkin has been clingy and tyrannical. The immediate problem is that she wants to pee, but can't decide what pot to pee in. "I want my little white potty," she says. That's in the downstairs bathroom, so we take her down. But no sooner are we there than she changes her mind. "I want my upstairs potty."

Is anything more annoying that the toddler habit of whining for something and then, when you give it to her, rejecting it? Talk about being jerked around. "Sorry, honey," Molly says. "You wanted this one. So here you go." Larkin wails, But I want my upstairs potty! Patiently Molly explains the situation again, then goes about her business.

Larkin continues to wail away. I look at my watch. I'm late to meet my friend, and feeling guilty about leaving Molly with this on her hands. All Larkin wants, for whatever reason, is to pee upstairs. Do I really care? No. So I whisk her upstairs and put her on the potty. She quiets down and pees. Problem solved.

Jump ahead to the next morning, 6:30 a.m.. Breakfast time, but Larkin won't eat. In fact, she won't even get dressed. She's running around the dining room stark naked. Come on, we say, time to get going, time to start the day! All to no avail. "All right, honey," Molly says. "Put on your underwear, please."

"I don't want to!" she whines. "I want someone else to put on my underwear!"

You're a big girl now, we remind her, you can do it yourself.

"No, I can't! I'm not a big girl! I don't want to do it myself!" Molly rolls her eyes and disappears back into the kitchen to finish cleaning up. Larkin pouts, stamping her foot. It's ridiculous. Friday morning, we're running late, and we're being held hostage by a three-year-old streaker.

"OK," I say, and put her underwear on for her. "Can we proceed?"

At that moment Molly comes in. She takes a look, frowns, then wheels around and heads back into the kitchen. I hear the sound of the refrigerator door being slammed shut, hard. Things clatter around.

"You're not mad at me, are you?" I call out.

"Yes!" she yells, and comes back. "You know what we're trying to accomplish with her. And then you go and undo it. Just like you did last night."

I'm stunned. "Excuse me," I say. "I'm trying to help here."

"But you know what it's going to create. Now next time she'll just do the same thing again."

It's the stand-firm vs. caving-in dilemma. Molly sighs and shakes her head, gives me a look of supreme annoyance. Now I'm ripped too. "OK," I say, and yank Larkin's underwear back down around her ankles. She gives a howl: "No, daddy, don't pull my pants back DOWN!!"

"Beautiful," Molly says. "Lets fight right in front of her."

"Look," I say, gritting my teeth, "I may not have your absolute certainty about these situations, but I was not trying undermine you. I'm just trying to get our day going. And you go out and start slamming things around in the kitchen? That's bull." Molly has taken Larkin and is dressing her. She isn't handling her roughly, but I can't resist a low blow. "Will you please not take your anger out on her?" I say.

"Don't worry, I'll save plenty for you!"

I head into the den to cool off. Of course, yelling at each other in front of Larkin isn't something I want us to be doing. But hearing that door slam in the kitchen hit a nerve. Toward the end of my parents' marriage, my mother expressed her resentments by isolating herself in the kitchen and doing the dishes furiously. Decades later, that mad clonking sound is something I still associate with marital failure.

The saving feature of a real fight, of course, one where the two of you yell at each other and get it all out, is how it helps you relieve pressures built up over stressful days and weeks. Within minutes, Molly and I apologized to each other for our snarky exchange, and both of us felt better for it.

Our disagreement over caving versus standing firm, however, remains unchanged. To me, Molly is too worried that compromise puts us on a slippery slope; that a toddler will always manipulate and take advantage. From her point of view, my willingness to deal is little more than lazy shortsightedness, trading longer-term problems merely for the sake of peace and quiet now. And it's true, I do want the peace and quiet. I think a toddler's tantrum can reach a point where it becomes a bigger problem than whatever set it off. But maybe this is just a fancy way of saying I can't take it.

As for Snarkin' Larkin herself, it's hard to know what to make of the current phase she's in, with its mysterious caprices and cloying affectation of helplessness; the gusts of disregard that she blows on us in turn; the stormy tantrums followed by halcyon stretches of Sunny Little Girl. It's all pretty baffling. But then again, who really knows what goes on inside a three-year-old? The more I see, the less I understand.