Are these tantrum pictures humorous or humiliating?

by

Melissa Byers

posted in Mom Stories

Earlier this week I saw a viral post on Facebook featuring funny captions paired with pictures of toddlers and preschoolers throwing tantrums from ReasonsMySonisCrying.com. It sent me running to our lovely BabyCenter blog editors to stake my claim. I had to write a post about it. Unfortunately, what resulted isn’t exactly what I had planned for the topic.

Why did I love it so much? Because we’ve all been there. Every kid has a nuclear meltdown of catastrophic proportions over something completely crazy. One of my cherubs lost it after pouring her water down the sink drain and being unable to get it back in her cup. It didn’t matter that I offered to give her more. She wanted that water in the cup. She was 20 months-old and there was no talking sense into her. Why? It wasn’t because she was a difficult child. It was because of her age.

I posted about the topic in BabyCenter’s community, asking moms to share photos. We got many adorable submissions, but I also got a few negative reactions. One member said,

“posting pictures of tantrums is about as funny as the youtube videos where parents lied to their kids about eating all of their Halloween candy so they could get their painful reactions on video.”

That got me thinking, I felt confident there were light-years of difference between this project and those where parents are asked to deceive their children for the purpose of intentionally upsetting them. My vision was to adore these little ones and give a BTDT nod to moms. It’s one of those parenting deals where if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry because there’s no convincing a toddler of some things even if they seem obvious.

I get how that’s just part of their developmental stage. Besides, at BabyCenter we support moms and cherish children. The presentation of these photos was going to be done with love and support. Regardless, that comment now makes the whole thing seem a little muddy.

I’m totally against shaming kids. Heck, I even wrote a post about it a few months ago. Ultimately, I’ve decided against doing a slide show of tantruming toddlers because I’d never want to be lumped into the category of people who take pointing and laughing at children lightly. Their emotions are real and they’re worthy of compassion. Still, I’m not completely convinced that what I had in mind (and what our readers provided pictures of) crossed that fine line between humor and humiliation.

Photo credit: BabyCenter Community member malynch2

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