THE NARRATIVE ARC
How I Feel When Your Child Throws a Tantrum in Public
Do you feel the same?
We’ve all been there. You are in the middle of the Princeton bookstore surrounded by the cultural elite. Your child throws himself on the floor for no discernible reason and loses his mind. You are at the Philadelphia Zoo and you find yourself running after someone who is much faster, but has significantly shorter legs — how is that even possible? — and you have to throw him over your shoulder or hoist him up under your arm, kicking and screaming, because you are also pushing a stroller he won’t get into, while feeling the mortification of a million eyes — both primate and marsupial — judging you as a parent.
And when I see that happen at say, Target, or at the airport, or at the supermarket — when I see your darling Charlotte scream red-faced with rage at Starbucks or when I watch you drag sweet Declan bleary-eyed and burbling to the car, I am flooded with a feeling so immediately and thoroughly, it’s almost hard to describe. It is a combination of two different emotions that converge into an overwhelming abundance of feeling. I’d like to call it joylief. Maybe rejoy. It is a combination of joy and relief.
Thank God, I think. Thank God, other children act this way.
