A dad confronts the terrible twos

January 11, 2023 1:37 PM

I've heard moms talk about the terrible twos, but it's less common to see a dad write about with so much humor and heart.
posted by SituationNormal (26 comments total)

It’s literally like he’s a toddler and she’s his mother. It’s insane.

LOL, thanks for sharing this hilarious article. I would definitely never have found this myself..
posted by rpfields at 2:00 PM on January 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

glad you enjoyed it!
posted by SituationNormal at 2:01 PM on January 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

Poor sod. When my daughter was around that age, she thought it was hilarious to call me her daddy-mommy. So, rather the opposite experience.

I guess I should find some way to thank her for not smashing my (admittedly, not so porcelain, except maybe in the porcelain throne sense) sense of self.
posted by house-goblin at 3:08 PM on January 11, 2023

As a long-time homemaker dad with two young kids, this account rings true.

There's an awkward transitional period between babies -- where you can just grab em and do what you like -- and toddlers, from walking, eating and dressing to eventually most everything by the end of the toddlerhood. And that last part of it, after they learn how to say "no, i'll do what i want" is yeah when the real challenge begins.

It also reminds me of the book, "parenting from the inside out." The majority of my parenting involves dealing with my own childhood.
posted by mrgrimm at 3:16 PM on January 11, 2023 [6 favorites]

In the beginning, with our first child, we were all mama until we sinned and fell away from mama-ness.

It's still kind of a letdown to be called Daddy, but also still hilarious to recall the plaintive cries of "ma ma ma maMAMAMAMAMA" until one of us came running.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 3:59 PM on January 11, 2023

*bap* NOT THE MAMA!
posted by xedrik at 4:40 PM on January 11, 2023 [12 favorites]

A little overdone for me but some lines in there were just gold. This one might be my favorite:

But now I was like, ‘oh shit. I have to be in this relationship?’ I’m a mess! I thought becoming a parent meant creating a whole new identity for yourself that your child would have to believe since they’d never known anything different?

Too real.
posted by Wretch729 at 4:53 PM on January 11, 2023 [14 favorites]

That was just wonderful. I'm so glad I got to read it.

Thank you for posting this, SituationNormal!
posted by kristi at 5:07 PM on January 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

Me too, Wretch729 - that one struck home for me too.
posted by freethefeet at 5:31 PM on January 11, 2023

I forwarded this around, it rings so true! The way it feels when they reject you and you have to stop and remember you are the adult and this is normal toddler behavior while wanting to sulk in a corner.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 6:10 PM on January 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

No, he's your dad! You can't just call him "not mum."
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 6:36 PM on January 11, 2023 [4 favorites]

I never really experienced this because my kids were both 'dad' kids, but IMO it's equally awkward when some other kid calls you dad (or mom I'm sure), especially if it's in front of their actual dad or mom. Yikes. Even though they are young and don't know better and probably don't know that 'dad' isn't actually your name, I'm still pretty sure they do it out of spite.
posted by The_Vegetables at 6:51 PM on January 11, 2023

I was enjoying this and then got to a big unkillable LIKE SUBSCRIBE thing.

Goodbye.
posted by Scarf Joint at 8:37 PM on January 11, 2023

Also: The Story about the Baby
posted by Scarf Joint at 8:40 PM on January 11, 2023

a big unkillable LIKE SUBSCRIBE thing

You mean the one with a "Continue Reading" button that kills the pop-up?
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 8:55 PM on January 11, 2023 [7 favorites]

Miles Jupp has a good routine about coping with small kids.
posted by Paul Slade at 5:04 AM on January 12, 2023

This is great. Toddlers are difficult. Like, really, really, difficult. Sometimes humor and self-denial is the only way forward.

a big unkillable LIKE SUBSCRIBE thing

Pretty sure this is a standard substack thing. You can click past it.
posted by HumanComplex at 6:17 AM on January 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

Speaking as a dad who's slept on the floor next to my two year old's crib twice this week because she woke up screaming, but told my wife, "no mama, I want baba to stay," this rings like a big, cracked bell.
posted by 1adam12 at 8:02 AM on January 12, 2023

Our kiddo (age 12) still switches up calling both of us Mama or Dada. It makes me feel good, actually, that both of us can fill a bit of either role for her. Or she’s just bad at names.
posted by amanda at 8:37 AM on January 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

In the beginning, with our first child, we were all mama until we sinned and fell away from mama-ness.

Us too. Also for a while all animals were "Coco", after one of our cats. I felt bad for all dogs, and also for our other cat.
posted by madcaptenor at 8:38 AM on January 12, 2023

You always hear about the terrible twos, but three was more challenging for us.

Any time you might think you have this parenting thing figured out, everything changes and you have to learn all over again.

Our daughter (10) tried to stop using "mommy" and "daddy" a couple years ago and we nipped that shit in the bud. "Daddy" is an honorific and I earned it.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:55 AM on January 12, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'm thinking about sending this to my poor husband but it may reopen some old wounds. Both of our kids for YEARS had a strong Mom preference, to put it mildly. Starting around age 2, our oldest would holler "go 'WAY, daddy!" or "daddy, stop talking!!" the second my spouse opened his mouth. He came home one night from a particularly rough funeral and just wanted a hug from his toddler. "NO DADDY! GO AWAY!" It was like watching Charlie Brown and the football every time, except instead of a football imagine if Lucy just punched Charlie in the gut and then started kicking him in the ribs for good measure.

He was hopeful our younger child would be a Daddy's Girl. She was not. The kid would literally dodge his open arms to run and hug my leg and coo "I wuv you, Mama." I tried to steer the kids towards Dad but the best fix is to GTFO of your house entirely and make Dad the only option, and during a pandemic there weren't exactly many places I could go. One memorable night when I was exhausted, we had Dad handle her bath time, and she screamed for me so long and hard that she vomited. He'd try to put on a stoic face during all of this, but it obviously, deeply, hurt.

It is now, finally, improving. The 4yo can still be harsh, but it's less dramatic and she lets Dad do things for her like snuggle with her and sing her to sleep every night, and take her out for lunch. The 7yo regularly informs him he's the best dad in the whole world, so there is light at the end of the tunnel for all the rejected dadas out there.
posted by castlebravo at 11:03 AM on January 12, 2023 [5 favorites]

The writing was ok but I didn't appreciate the unattributed images, the excellent "inner child" cartoon is from New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck.
posted by stinker at 8:28 AM on January 13, 2023

You always hear about the terrible twos, but three was more challenging for us.
One of our friends said the same, and described their kid as a "threenager", and even as a non-parent, that term tells such a story.
posted by xedrik at 10:00 AM on January 14, 2023

You always hear about the terrible twos, but three was more challenging for us.
This was our experience, too. The twos (especially for my eldest) were DIVINE, she was lovely and biddable and, when she wasn't, would put _herself_ into timeout.

Three was fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked
posted by coriolisdave at 3:19 AM on January 15, 2023

I'll echo that - two was a delight, three was much more difficult. For the record, I was sometimes mama, sometimes dada but honestly I was ok with whatever as long as it came from a place of love. When I'd see my stricter friends and relations dealing with their toddlers it always seemed like a bad time for everybody. For us we always took a collaborative approach with childrearing - as Bruce Lee said "Be as Water".
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:08 PM on January 16, 2023