On the art of staying empathetic to toddlers

Kelvin and Hobbes, ‘Mummy, Hobbes says you’re not my real mother.’ Mother: ‘Believe me, I am. If not, I would have strangled you years ago.’

Harvey Jackins, ‘Every parent of young children deserves ten sessions to murder their kids [outside of their earshot]. These are feelings to look at.’

Miriam Adahan, ‘It’s every child’s job to do exactly what irritates their parents most.’

Parental love and the kids’ cuteness are said to overcome all the anger we may feel toward young people, but that’s untrue. It is fully taboo to admit this, but the real miracle isn’t when caregivers abuse but when they don’t.

This doesn’t mean that toddler abuse should be looked at through pink glasses. Wanting to rob a bank is also natural for many people, but the second you start planning a heist, you’re way over what can be tolerated.

Instead of investigating ‘why’ caretakers abused, we should read more about those who don’t. How do they stay empathetic? What do they do with their feelings of being fed up? Do they have supportive supervision?

I had very high standards of how to take care of my little ones. I would let them cry whenever they needed while I held them and would not distract them. I knew that tears meant healing, not suffering. They always stopped by themselves and then were happy for a long time. How did I do that?

It should be noted that I became a father at 40 and then had already 15 years of intense therapy under my belt. And my parents had a very high morality. Under lesser conditions, it’s heroic any time you let your kids cry with you (not in a room alone where they’d drown in loneliness and the feeling no one cares). When you only sometimes let them cry, those times may be longer. But hey, do what you can and a little more, and then some.

By seeking tear tolerance, I learned that my parents didn’t have endless patience when I needed a cry. My mother’s ran out in about half a second. They were Holocaust survivors, so I don’t blame them (anymore). But this was my chance to have patience enter our family.

The problem with crying babies is that you can’t know how long they need. Five minutes, half an hour, or more than an hour? If found, a maximum of 75 minutes, but no cry has any guarantee. When they stopped, I was even brave enough to ask friendly, ‘Is that all?’ Almost always, the response was more crying. But they always stopped by themselves. What a relief!

When other babies cried in their presence, they wouldn’t chime in. They found it interesting or just continued playing. And they didn’t orchestrate ‘accidents’ to help grownups ‘understand’ when they needed to cry.

I remember this wonderful, warm, wise Mizrachi woman who cared for five kids daily and five times a week and gave them wonderful, freshly cooked meals. ‘I can’t have them cry,’ she said, ‘because when one begins, they all start.’ Not my son, does he? ‘No, he doesn’t.’ I understood her.

Babies still feel great about crying. (Don’t you remember?) When they hear crying, they assume it’s now safe to do so—if they need to. This ‘contagiousness’ many grownups still have with yawning.

My basic tool was that I myself had countless hours of shedding my own tears in therapy sessions. It was nice that, as a teenager, I had decided to be happy and not grow bitter, but to keep it up, the tears needed to go.

I had a triple strategy to give them space to cry as much as they needed:

1. At first, I warmly listened to them from the patience that came from my love for them. That lasted about 20 minutes.

2. Then, I pretended I still felt love and patience. The kids didn’t care. A smile and a really good copy of a smile were enough to help them drain their sadness. That too, I could keep up for some 20 minutes. And then?

3. I fantasized about what I soon was going to do to them. Sell them, and more bloody variations. Some 20 minutes of fury, revenge, resentment—they were all welcome. These would later help me in my therapy sessions.

When they still needed to cry after phase 3, I would give them to someone else or give up. I never had to do that, but it always was an option.

My kids became very happy, friendly, empathetic, and nice grownups.

When I was younger, I once was babysitting and got so frustrated with this one baby, I just couldn’t continue dressing him. But I knew babies are always happy to cooperate, so the trouble was with me. With my hands, I prevented him from rolling off the counter, turned my face away so he wouldn’t think it had anything to do with him, and simply cried for a couple of minutes. When I felt better, I turned to him to see how he was doing. He beamed at me like saying, ‘I didn’t know you too could do that’!

While love is natural, so is impatience in grownups. We need more inspiring stories on how to deal with our darker sides that surface when we need to be all loving and caring.

And professional caregivers should be taught what to do before they lose it. And they should be trusted on how personal they are with the kids (Do they change diapers as one peels potatoes or communicate with the kids meanwhile?) and not just on how much they smile to the parents.

Kindergartens with three caregivers with eight-hour shifts watching 30 kids borders on the criminal and theft. These are disasters in the making.

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About the Author

MM is a prolific and creative writer and thinker, previously a daily blog contributor to the TOI. He often makes his readers laugh, mad, or assume he's nuts—close to perfect blogging. He's proud that his analytical short comments are removed both from left-wing and right-wing news sites. None of his content is generated by the new bore on the block, AI. * As a frontier thinker, he sees things many don't yet. He's half a prophet. Half. Let's not exaggerate. Or not at all because he doesn't claim G^d talks to him. He gives him good ideas—that's all. MM doesn't believe that people observe and think in a vacuum. He, therefore, wanted a broad bio that readers interested can track a bit what (lack of) backgrounds, experiences, and educations contribute to his visions. * This year, he will prioritize getting his unpublished books published rather than just blog posts. Next year, he hopes to focus on activism against human extinction. To find less-recent posts on a subject XXX among his over 2000 archived ones, go to the right-top corner of a Times of Israel page, click on the search icon and search "zuiden, XXX". One can find a second, wilder blog, to which one may subscribe too, here: https://mmvanzuiden.wordpress.com/ or by clicking on the globe icon next to his picture on top. * Like most of his readers, he believes in being friendly, respectful, and loyal. However, if you think those are his absolute top priorities, you might end up disappointed. His first loyalty is to the truth. He will try to stay within the limits of democratic and Jewish law, but he won't lie to support opinions or people when don't deserve that. (Yet, we all make honest mistakes, which is just fine and does not justify losing support.) He admits that he sometimes exaggerates to make a point, which could have him come across as nasty, while in actuality, he's quite a lovely person to interact with. He holds - how Dutch - that a strong opinion doesn't imply intolerance of other views. * Sometimes he's misunderstood because his wide and diverse field of vision seldomly fits any specialist's box. But that's exactly what some love about him. He has written a lot about Psychology (including Sexuality and Abuse), Medicine (including physical immortality), Science (including basic statistics), Politics (Israel, the US, and the Netherlands, Activism - more than leftwing or rightwing, he hopes to highlight reality), Oppression and Liberation (intersectionally, for young people, the elderly, non-Whites, women, workers, Jews, LGBTQIA+, foreigners and anyone else who's dehumanized or exploited), Integrity, Philosophy, Jews (Judaism, Zionism, Holocaust and Jewish Liberation), the Climate Crisis, Ecology and Veganism, Affairs from the news, or the Torah Portion of the Week, or new insights that suddenly befell him. * Chronologically, his most influential teachers are his parents, Nico (natan) van Zuiden and Betty (beisye) Nieweg, Wim Kan, Mozart, Harvey Jackins, Marshal Rosenberg, Reb Shlomo Carlebach, and, lehavdil bein chayim lechayim, Rabbi Dr. Natan Lopes Cardozo, Rav Zev Leff, and Rav Meir Lubin. This short list doesn't mean to disrespect others who taught him a lot or a little. One of his rabbis calls him Mr. Innovation [Ish haChidushim]. Yet, his originalities seem to root deeply in traditional Judaism, though they may grow in unexpected directions. In fact, he claims he's modernizing nothing. Rather, mainly basing himself on the basic Hebrew Torah text, he tries to rediscover classical Jewish thought almost lost in thousands of years of stifling Gentile domination and Jewish assimilation. (He pleads for a close reading of the Torah instead of going by rough assumptions of what it would probably mean and before fleeing to Commentaries.) This, in all aspects of life, but prominently in the areas of Free Will, Activism, Homosexuality for men, and Redemption. * He hopes that his words will inspire and inform, and disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. He aims to bring a fresh perspective rather than harp on the obvious and familiar. When he can, he loves to write encyclopedic overviews. He doesn't expect his readers to agree. Rather, original minds should be disputed. In short, his main political positions are among others: anti-Trumpism, for Zionism, Intersectionality, non-violence, anti those who abuse democratic liberties, anti the fake ME peace process, for original-Orthodoxy, pro-Science, pro-Free Will, anti-blaming-the-victim, and for down-to-earth, classical optimism, and happiness. Read his blog on how he attempts to bridge any tensions between those ideas or fields. * He is a fetal survivor of the pharmaceutical industry (https://diethylstilbestrol.co.uk/studies/des-and-psychological-health/), born in 1953 to his parents who were Dutch-Jewish Holocaust survivors who met in the largest concentration camp in the Netherlands, Westerbork. He grew up a humble listener. It took him decades to become a speaker too, and decades more to admit to being a genius. But his humility was his to keep. And so was his honesty. Bullies and con artists almost instantaneously envy and hate him. He hopes to bring new things and not just preach to the choir. * He holds a BA in medicine (University of Amsterdam) – is half a doctor. He practices Re-evaluation Co-counseling since 1977, is not an official teacher anymore, and became a friendly, powerful therapist. He became a social activist, became religious, made Aliyah, and raised three wonderful kids. Previously, for decades, he was known to the Jerusalem Post readers as a frequent letter writer. For a couple of years, he was active in hasbara to the Dutch-speaking public. He wrote an unpublished tome about Jewish Free Will. He's a strict vegan since 2008. He's an Orthodox Jew but not a rabbi. * His writing has been made possible by an allowance for second-generation Holocaust survivors from the Netherlands. It has been his dream since he was 38 to try to make a difference by teaching through writing. He had three times 9-out-of-10 for Dutch at his high school finals but is spending his days communicating in English and Hebrew - how ironic. G-d must have a fine sense of humor. In case you wonder - yes, he is a bit dyslectic. If you're a native English speaker and wonder why you should read from people whose English is only their second language, consider the advantage of having an original peek outside of your cultural bubble. * To send any personal reaction to him, scroll to the top of the blog post and click Contact Me. * His newest books you may find here: https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AMoshe-Mordechai%2FMaurits+van+Zuiden&s=relevancerank&text=Moshe-Mordechai%2FMaurits+van+Zuiden&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1