Life In These United States

The Sub-Atomic World of Two Year Olds

Being a parent is hard. Everyone knows this, whether you have kids or not. But you can’t know the true depths of how difficult parenting is until you have a kid. Don’t mean to pull rank. It’s just true.

There’s no one particular thing about being a parent that takes Herculean effort. You get used to doing certain tasks very quickly. Feeding, dressing, burping–no big deal, any of them. Yes, you can even get accustomed to touching another human being’s feces on a regular basis. After a while, it’s not a big deal. To this day, I’m more grossed out by baby food than I am by baby poop.

What is a big deal is the fact that it never ends. There is no punching out. There is no weekend. You are on red alert 24/7, and anything you do–even if it’s the absolute right thing to do–may scar your child for life. It’s like being in a combat zone, only not so relaxing.

dragkid.pngI say this because I ran across a video yesterday that gave me pause, in which a mother drags her kid (who’s on a leash-type restraint) across the floor of store. Your reaction to it probably depends on whether you have a kid or not.

If you don’t have a kid, you are likely think this is HORRIBLE and INEXCUSABLE and this woman SHOULD BE LOCKED UP AND NEVER BE ALLOWED TO BREED AGAIN!!1! The state of Alabama agrees with you, because they’ve thrown this woman in jail and are threatening to take her child away from her.

If you do have a kid, you probably think: Yeah, she shouldn’t have done that. But…

Because every parent has been driven to a point where they’ve contemplated doing something like this. Or something in the same ballpark. If you say you’ve never thought about dragging your kid home, you either have a team of au pairs or you’re a fucking liar.

Especially if you have a two-year-old. That is a very special age where a child asserts his/her independence but cannot be reasoned with in any way. It’s impossible to completely placate a two-year-old, because their whims operate under the laws of quantum mechanics. Call it The Toddler Uncertainty Principle: The more you think you’ve pinned down what they want, the more likely it is those desires just shifted in a completely different direction.

Two-year-olds have no agenda but their own pleasure and chaos. It’s like living with The Joker.

All this video shows is 30 seconds of a mother reacting poorly. It doesn’t show all the events leading up to the mother’s meltdown. Maybe this kid ran around the store like a maniac and didn’t listen to a word his mother said. Maybe he hauled off and hit her when she said he couldn’t have some dumb fuckin’ plastic toy he wanted. Maybe she heeded every direction that came out his mouth, and he still screamed “I hate you!”

Yeah, two-year-olds do that all the time. If an adult made demand after demand of you, and you met every single one, and they said, “Guess what? I hate you!”, what would you do? You’d kick that person in the dick is what you’d do. It’s hard to turn off the “I’ve just been horribly insulted” impulse in your brain, even if it’s your own flesh and blood disrespecting you.

You may be inclined to say, “It’s the mother’s own fault for raising an unruly child.” Two-year-olds are unruly. There’s nothing more unruly in nature, not even the sub-atomic world. Scientists are still trying to figure out why this tiny universe operates in ways that seem to completely defy the laws of physics. And we still know more about quarks than we do about two-year-olds.

I don’t care how well you’ve raised your kid, how many Baby Einstein tapes you’ve bought, how many foreign language flash cards you zipped in front of their face. Once they hit a certain age, they turn into monsters. It doesn’t last forever, but it might feel like it does.

Also keep in mind that two-year-olds are prone to complete and total meltdowns that have no real solution. In those cases, the best thing to do is let your kid cry/kick/punch their way out of it (while making sure they don’t hurt themselves or others, of course). That may lead you to look callous or negligent to others–as I found out during a trip to the ER earlier this year.

But you know what? Fuck the rest of the world. As a parent, it’s not your job to satisfy some idealistic BS idea of what good parenting should look like. Anyone who hasn’t spent an entire day being screamed at by a two-year-old has no right to judge.

Say your kid is screaming because he wants candy. He hasn’t had any dinner yet, so you say no. He flips out, making you look like The World’s Worst Dad to everyone else in Duane Reade. You could get him some candy to keep him quiet, and that might make the situation less embarrassing for you.

But is that good parenting? Of course not, for a million different reasons. All you’d do is give your kid a lesson that if he screams loud enough, you’ll do anything he says. And for what? So you could look better for a bunch of people who don’t know you and who you’ll never see again. “I’ve turned my child into a sociopath, but at least that weird old lady with the support hose and the purple hair at the prescription counter stopped staring at me!”

Should this woman have dragged her kid? Of course not. But I don’t think she made a conscious decision to do that; she just snapped. And I totally understand how a person could snap like that. I hope her home state will see it that way (assuming this was just a moment of insanity for her).

Seeing this video made me think of Louis CK’s bit on parental meltdowns. “What did that shitty kid do to that poor woman?!”

1999 Project

1999 Project: Atlanta, Round One

Click here for an intro/manifesto on The 1999 Project.

chipper2.jpgJune 25, 1999: Mets 10, Braves 2

This late June tilt in Atlanta was, amazingly, the first time the Mets faced the Braves in 1999. The series held some importance, with the Mets only three games out of first after their three-game sweep of Florida. However, as hard as it might be to believe now, the intense rivalry between the two teams hadn’t yet been formed.

For one thing, while the Braves dominated the entire decade of the 1990s, the Mets stayed strenuously non-competitive. It’s hard to start a rivalry when one team refuses to put up a fight.

Granted, at the end of the 1998 season, Atlanta had swept the Mets as part of the five-game skid that cost them a wild card berth. No one seemed to believe that was personal, however (even if those games meant nothing to the Braves, who had already clinched yet another division title). If you read the newspaper accounts prior to this series, you see none of the vitriol and animosity that would emerge in later years–due largely to the many games between the two teams in 1999.

In the Daily News, John Harper wondered if two mainstays of the Braves’ rotation–Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine–were losing their invincibility. The pitchers’ stats to that point in the season were not up their usual lofty standards.

The culprit, so everyone thought, was a more strenuous enforcement of the strike zone. Maddux and Glavine had won Cy Youngs by getting generous strike calls a few inches off the plate. But it would soon become abundantly clear that any rumors of their demise had been greatly exagerrated.

The start of the first game was delayed 45 minutes, due to lighting issues at Turner Field. The Mets would be without Mike Piazza, who was nursing a sore neck he sustained on a Bruce Aven backswing during the Marlins series.

Despite these ill omens, things looked good in the series opener. The Mets took an early lead on a Benny Agbayani solo homer off of Odalis Perez in the top of the second, then notched three more runs against Perez in the top of the sixth with RBI singles from Todd Pratt, Roger Cedeno, and starter Rick Reed. They piled it on against the Braves’ usually strong bullpen, scoring one run in the seventh, two in the eighth, and three in the ninth, en route to a 10-2 victory–their first at Turner Field in almost two years.

Atlanta was reportedly perturbed when Rickey Henderson stole second in the top of the ninth, with the Mets already up 7-2. After the game, Bobby Valentine defended the move, telling reporters, “Rickey’s been in that situation as much as anyone in this room or that room [clubhouse].” In other words, Rickey can steal whenever Rickey feels like it.

June 26, 1999: Braves 7, Mets 2

Pitching prospect Octavio Dotel was called up to take Jason Isringhausen’s spot in the starting rotation and make his major league debut at Turner Field. The jewel of the Mets farm system, Dotel impressed at Norfolk, striking out 17 batters in one triple-A outing. “Dotel, he’s one of their bright ones, right?” Bobby Cox asked reporters before the game. He then invoked the ill-fated memory of Generation K.

It didn’t take long for Dotel to fall behind, as he gave up two walks and a three-run homer to Ryan Klesko in the bottom of the first. The young righty settled in for the next few innings, but was touched up for another three runs in the bottom of the fifth, then yanked for Pat Mahomes.

Tom Glavine was, of course, Vintage (Atlanta) Glavine, going seven innings and giving up only one run. Other than a three-hit top of the sixth that produced a run, the Mets never truly threatened.

During the game, Piazza was bothered by a fan sitting behind the Atlanta dugout who called out his position behind the plate before each pitch. Home plate ump Bob Davidson stalked over in the fan’s general direction just as he removed himself from the stands of his own volition. According to the Daily News, “Piazza was afraid that the extra information may have caused extra contact at home plate.”

June 27, 1999: Braves 1, Mets 0

Masato Yoshii turned in a very good seven innings. Unfortunately, he was opposed by eight excellent innings from Greg Maddux.

The game’s only run came in the bottom of the third, when Eddie Perez hit a one-out single. After Maddux bunted the slow-footed catcher to second, he came around to score on an Ozzie Guillen double. It was the only damage Yoshii would allow, but it was one run too many.

The Mets got a few chances late, but could not convert. In the top of the eighth, Brian McRae worked a leadoff walk, then found himself on third after a sac bunt and a groundout. Valentine sent up Matt Franco to pinch hit, and he worked a full count but flailed at a sharp curveball to strike out and end the inning.

In the top of the ninth, Edgardo Alfonzo managed a one-out single against the Braves’ newly minted closer, John Rocker. Pinch runner Melvin Mora moved to second on a groundout, but after an intentional walk to Piazza, Rocker struck out Robin Ventura to end the game.

After the offensive explosion of the first game, the Mets scored a mere two runs in the last two contests. Still, the Mets–a bit hubristically, perhaps–pronounced themselves optimistic that they could hang with Atlanta for the remainder of the season.

A typically cocky Rickey Henderson said, “From what I see, we have the better club…The one thing I’ve always said about the Atlanta Braves is they’re a lucky club. When you
have luck rolled in and balls going their way, I think they have the little edge over us right now. I think it’s going to be a good run to the end.”

Meanwhile, an atypically generous Chipper Jones said, “I don’t see them going away. They have too many good players.”

1999 Project

1999 Project: Games 70-72

Click here for an intro/manifesto on The 1999 Project.June 22, 1999: Mets 8, Marlins 2

Masato Yoshii pitched well in this outing, the first in a brief three-game homestand, giving up just two runs in 6 2/3 innings, but the Mets were baffled by the knuckleball of Florida starter Dennis Springer. Robin Ventura hit a solo shot off of him in the second, but Kevin Orie hit a two-run bomb of his own in the third, and the Mets entered the seventh inning trailing 2-1.

Yoshii got into some trouble in the top of the seventh, when he allowed a one-out double and a walk. Bobby Valentine called on reliever Greg McMichael, who retired the next two batters to keep the deficit at one run.

In the bottom half, the Mets finally got to Springer. Ventura led off the inning with a double. After a Brian McRae pop out, Roger Cedeno hit a ball that center fielder Preston Wilson (one of the chips sent to Florida the previous season in the Mike Piazza trade) tried to field on one hop. But the ball skipped past him, allowing Ventura to score and Cedeno to speed to third with a triple. Antonio Alfonseca came on to relieve Springer, but he promptly gave up RBI singles to Rey Ordonez and Edgardo Alfonzo.

After Armando Benitez pitched a 1-2-3 top of the eighth, the Mets piled on in their half. Piazza led off with a solo shot, and a double by Ventura and a single by McRae put runners on second and third with nobody out. Cedeno was walked intentionally to bring up the much less threatening Ordonez, but he delivered a two-run single. Even Benitez pitched in; in a rare at-bat for the set-up man, he drove in a run with a groundout. No worse for wear, the big righty set the Marlins down in order in the ninth to preserve the victory.

In other team news, the Mets decided to send Jason Isringhausen down to Norfolk again, with an eye toward making him a reliever. It was a move that would provide dividends–most of them for Oakland.

June 23, 1999: Mets 6, Marlins 3

Al Leiter continued his resurgence, throwing seven sharp innings, striking out seven, and giving up three runs. Since his breakthrough performance at Yankee Stadium, the lefty had an ERA of 2.25. Leiter seemed to falter a bit in the top of the seventh, when he gave up a single and a walk to the first two batters, prompting an unwelcome visit to the mound from Bobby Valentine (conferences and pitching changes were usually handled by pitching coach Dave Wallace). He induced a double play from future Met Luis Castillo, and though he allowed a run-scoring single from Alex Gonzalez, he struck out the last batter he faced to escape further damage.

Alfonzo paced the offense, hitting a solo shot and knocking in three runs. Cedeno swiped two more bases, bringing his total on the season to a league-leading 41. The bullpen made sure Leiter’s effort stuck. Despite appearing in his third game in four days, Benitez pitched a 1-2-3 eighth with two strikeouts, and John Franco set down all three batters he faced for his nineteenth save of the year.

On the negative side, Piazza suffered a mild concussion when he was hit by a Bruce Aven backswing in the top of the seventh. The catcher stayed in the game to try and extend his franchise record 24-game hitting streak, but grounded out in the bottom of the eighth and came out of the game. Afterward, his last at-bat was little more than a blur. “I think I swung at one of the balls I saw,” he told the Daily News.

June 24, 1999: Mets 3, Marlins 2

The Mets completed a three-game sweep of the Marlins, thanks to some late inning heroics. Orel Hershiser pitched six solid innings, giving up just one run. Future Met Livan Hernandez gave up two runs in the bottom of the sixth, but helped tie the score when he doubled to lead off the top of the seventh and came around to score on a sac fly.

With the score knotted at 2 in the bottom of the eighth, John Olerud hit a one-out double. Then Ventura blooped a single over the first baseman’s head to score pinch runner Luis Lopez and give the Mets the lead. Franco set down the Marlins in order in the top of the ninth to seal the victory.

Next up: The first-place Braves. The Mets had won 14 of their last 17 games and trailed Atlanta by only three games. But this would be the biggest test they faced thus far.

Somewhat prophetically, Valentine told the Daily News:

The bigness of it is that we haven’t seen them up close all season. They’re always there. They’ll always be there. They are the team we’ve been chasing since I’ve been here…I guess longer than that. So it’ll be good to see them on the field. We know they’re going to be around and what we want to do is let them know that we’re going to be around. Because the season ends playing them six
times in the last [12] games.

A potentially explosive collection of verbal irritants