LF

I’ve really been meaning to write about this for awhile. In fact, I thought that by the time I got around to it, that it would be moot – that the phase would have passed. But it has not. Perhaps it is not even a phase, but a personality type, but let’s just call it a phase for now. Or even a developmental stage, to euphemize. The Little Fucker developmental stage. We like to call it “LF,” kind of like “MF*,” only insert Little instead of Mother. The most obvious manifestation of the LF stage is tantrums, but what distinguishes the LF stage from normal toddler tantrums is the sense of entitlement that seems to fuel it all. For instance, when you change H-nry’s diaper, he’s not just hopping mad b/c it’s boring and he’d rather be doing something else – he feels violated, he cannot even begin to believe that such indignity is being suffered upon him again - ­he’s a victim, but he’s not just going to take it lying down, he fights it tooth and nail every single time because he is entitled to something better. Perhaps our proximity to Duke has infected him with a sense of white male privilege at a young age – that’s my current theory. At first I thought it was bitterness about weaning, but that was months ago, and in any case that just proves my theory of entitlement-based behavior, as even though I’d nursed him for a year, he felt entitled to continued access to the breast. But he feels entitled to a lot more than that – he appears to feel entitled to everything, resulting in one indignant little fucker every time he doesn’t get his way – how dare you, do you know who I am, he says. Attempts to distract or appease him when he’s in a paroxysm of little fuckerness only make him angrier – he knows he’s being patronized. He bangs his head on the floor, throws things, and shakes as he stiffens his whole body and screams with all of his might. It may sound like an anger management problem, but the LF stage runs deeper than the outward manifestation of anger. I worry that he will become a right-wing extremist or some other sort of devoted fascist. He has the fortitude for it. I can only hope that he will use his might for good instead of evil. For now, it really works for him. I am a sucker for the allure of the bad boy – I love him not in spite of him being a little fucker, but because of it. So cute it is, the way he's a little fucker. My boy.

*At one point C-rina’s name was to be Maisy, but I just couldn’t give her the initials M.F.