Little Dictators

This weekend I had the opportunity to watch a master manipulator at the peak of her powers.

The master: my niece Mika, who just turned three. Mika was named after the Formula One driver, so she might well have been called Schuey, Jensen, or Juan-Carlos. She is big for her age — she is often mistaken for a five-year-old — and very independent. Not only is she proficient with spoon and fork at the table, but every morning she picks out her own clothes for the day. After she’s made her wardrobe choices, she decides what her mother — my sister Cookie — is going to wear to work.

If my sister declines the styling advice there is a huge scene. For Mika has a mutant superpower: a very loud, bloodcurdling shriek. It stops grownups in their tracks and sends cats running for cover. I suspect it can pierce metal and interfere with sonar devices. The minute I figure out how to weaponize it I’m calling NATO.

Impressive as this superpower is, it is not the main weapon in Mika’s arsenal. Her greatest ability is bending adults to her will. I don’t mean malleable adults, I mean my sister. Usually when Cookie puts her foot down it’s down, and good luck budging it: it’s so huge, she will soon need to have her shoes custom-made. We’re talking Sasquatch.

However, the three-year-old knows that she can manipulate her mother by exploiting her guilt complex. Like many women who have jobs, Cookie feels that she is not devoting enough time to raising her child. Classic fear-of-being-a-bad-parent syndrome. And Mika tweaks it by openly preferring her 60-year-old yaya’s company to that of her gene pool.

I know this parental guilt thing to be a total crock. Both my parents had jobs so we didn’t spend every waking moment together, but I still wished they’d pay less attention to me. Maybe kids have changed since I was one (chronologically, since my mental age is permanently 11), but I suspect they don’t enjoy hanging out with their parents every second of the day. They want to run around with other kids, or play Guitar Hero, or visit anarchist websites or something. They’re tough little critters, and they’re not going to break because Mommy and Daddy aren’t around for every new word they pronounce.

By the way Mika only recently deigned to express herself verbally. She had no real need for speech: every twitch and sound she made was over-interpreted by her parents and other adults in the vicinity.

She’d say “Ga” and they’d all jump. “Guava juice? You want guava juice? A gladiator costume? Lady GaGa’s album?” That child is spoiled to bits.

The mass media and entertainment industries take the opposite view. Anyone who is not a stay-at-home full-time parent and nurturer is an emotional offender. She/he must expiate this sin, and naturally the compensation involves shelling out large sums of money to buy the child’s affection. It’s a great marketing tactic.

My niece’s relentless demand for attention would be explained as the natural inclination of a child suffering parental neglect. Ha!

Sometimes a demand for attention is just a demand for attention.

Every superhero needs a supervillain, and in Mika’s world that is I.

The kid knows it, too. Whenever she sees me she lets out a shriek that shatters glass windows within a 250-meter radius. But it’ll take more than a screaming child to stop me; I have three cats! I clean the litter box, I wield the pooper-scooper; no diaper-wearing toddler will intimidate me. Plus I know what’s going on in that child’s head, because it’s going on in mine.

“It’s because you don’t adore her,” my sister tells me as she dashes

off to buy another toy to calm her squalling kid. The real reason Mika is distressed by my presence is that she recognizes me for what I am: Competition. It takes a child to spot another child in adult disguise.

“Well, Comrade Koba,” I tell her, “I see you have returned. I suppose you’ll want to move in on Chechnya.”

“Ja!” she screams delightedly.

“Sigmund Freud would love you, you’re the proof of his theories.”

“Ta!”

Last week my sister had to visit their head office in the US for a few days. She came back with presents and even more guilt — a whole week away from her poor, abandoned daughter! Bad mother! Along with Mika’s toys and candy she bought a stuffed toy for my cats (She also feels guilt at abandoning them. They don’t care). I was trying out the string toy when Mika trotted over and reached for it.

“Mine,” she declared.

“Nope,” I said. “It’s for my cats.” The child has to learn: You cannot engage me in an immaturity contest. I will win.

In a clever stroke I did not foresee, she hung down her head and solemnly walked behind a chair. Then she started her Method

Crying — making bawling sounds that gained in volume and conviction until real tears flowed down her fat cheeks.

“Brilliant!” I said. “Watch out, Meryl Streep!”

Her mother immediately brought her to the toy store, where Mika picked out a Barbie set containing Barbie and two children dolls on a swing. I didn’t know Barbie had spawn; for sure Ken is not the father. Mika displayed the new toys triumphantly.

“See?” I told my sister. “She even picked out a mother Barbie spending time at the playground with her perfect children. Working the guilt angle again.”

“I know, I know,” Cookie sighed.

It occurred to me that I could benefit from this complex that my niece triggers with shocking ease. As we walked passed a jeans store I started whining. “I need new jeans. All my jeans are committing suicide and ripping themselves. I only have two pairs left! Oh poor, neglected me, whine whine whine.”

My sister bought me jeans. Thank you, Mika.