Musings from a Millennial: Toddler Clarity for a Confused Adult World

The views stated here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of all of the editors of this newspaper.

By Meghan Peterson, Ph.D.

Clarity of Toddlerhood

I have noticed something about toddler behavior. OK; I have observed many somethings about toddlers, but I want to focus on one particular something for now. Specifically, I have come to appreciate the toddler’s uncanny sense of, and need for, clarity.

Exhibit A: “Mommy!!” Toddler points enthusiastically to a letter he sees on the page. “That is the letter B,” I reply. “B…B…B!!!” he says with an affirmative, confident, knowing shout. “Mommy!!” Toddler points to another object he sees on the page: “That is a green circle,” I say. “Greeeeeen. Round!” he exclaims.

Exhibit B: I proceed to take a baking dish from the oven to let it cool. “HOT!!!” Toddler yells with jubilation and eagerness. “Yes. The dinner is very hot. We must let it cool down before we eat,” I explain. Next, I open the fridge to take some dressing out. Toddler pronounces “COOOOLD!” To which I comment, “Yes. That is correct. Foods in the fridge are cold.”

In both examples, the process of naming an object (i.e., a letter; a shape; a color) or identifying the quality of that object (i.e., the temperature of food) centers on clarifying what something is and how the common language between Toddler and Parent (in this case, it is English; although, it can be any language) represents that something.

I will return to this concept in a moment…or two. My points that follow come full circle (or will it be a green circle?).

Heteroflexibility? It’s in!

I opened a section of my Sunday newspaper to an eye-catching headline recently: “A new sexual orientation? Heteroflexible brings up health issues that need to be addressed.”[1]

What is heteroflexibility? What does it mean to say, “I am a proud heteroflexible American.” Is heteroflexibility similar to being bisexual? Not quite, according to the article. Researchers are advocating for a new category of sexual orientation (or perhaps, dis-orientation) to the mix. As the author reports, heteroflexibles are people “who identify as heterosexual but who are strongly attracted to or engage in sex with people of the same sex.”[2] What? How is that not being bi?

Now, I want to make clear: sexual orientation is up to the adult. Emphasis on adult. Be what you want, when you want, with whom you want. Just be sure your choice does not infringe on my decision-making and autonomy. I will do the same.

But I detect a dangerous degree of division and confusion in this path contemporary society is charting. First, how can it be healthy for any human – toddler, youth, adult – to continuously segment oneself into categories and boxes? Building a culture of minorities within minorities appears to be the modus operandi. Even the most intricate Russian nesting doll would be jealous.

For instance, here are the checkboxes society has built for me: I am Caucasian. I am female. I am Cisgender. I am a millennial. I live in a small town. I simultaneously engage in microaggressions due to my white privilege as well as am a recipient of them due to my gender. Heteroflexibility is another name for another box, contrived by academics. This is the division component; divide humans in order to fuel angst and animosity. The confusion emerges when sexual orientation becomes this disorienting process (in part exacerbated by an academe whose general mission is to segment humanity and subvert civility) in which humans do not know what to do, with whom, or when. Heteroflexible? Is this a parody? Is this a subject of serious academic study? Or is the joke contained within the fact that we are even discussing this topic? Perhaps that is the foible of it all.

Transgender athletes: gender flexibility, it’s in!

Female high school athletes playing against girls-who-used-to-be-boys-but-decided-to-be-girls sounds like fabulous material for a work of short fiction? Not quite. It is a real story in our real state of Connecticut. Year 2020.

Speaking of sexual orientation flexibility, how about a dash of gender fluidity? Why not? You think it, and it will be your path! Well, these stellar Cisgender (i.e., individuals who are born females biologically and are OK/happy with that) females are suing the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference for its 2013-implemented policy which permits trans athletes to compete in sports based on their gender identity.[3] Specifically, the high school track athletes contend the policy violates Title IX, a federal civil rights act that prohibits discrimination on the basis of one’s sex.[4] In athletic contests, trans girls (girls who used to be boys) are besting the girls who, well, really are girls.

Now, I am all for pretend play and theatrical performance. I think children and youth thrive on imaginative, free play. When kids play and imagine, they engage their mental, physical, and emotional beings. But pretending to be a different gender – and then enacting that pretense in the form of a genitalia operation, particularly as a teenager or child – is delusional at best, exploitative and abusive at worst. Parental confusions about gender and sexuality are being foisted on younger humans. And these confusions are but one part of the macro-environment in which meaningless, purposeless, nothingness flourish. Friedrich Nietzche, the father of nihilism (literally, the philosophy of nothingness), would be dumbfounded.

Abortion and a baby’s heart beat detected at 5 ½-6 weeks: infanticide-flexibility, it’s in!

Today’s technology is so cool and astounding. Check this out: a certain type of ultrasound can detect the heartbeat of a baby between 5 ½-6 weeks after gestation.[5] A heartbeat? Yes. And we are legislating our way around the question of life in this nation by aborting a “fetus” after 24 weeks (2nd trimester for the mom).[6]

If we abort the baby/fetus/thing-that-has-a-heart-beat before 24 weeks, does that mean we are comfortable with snuffing life? If we abort “it” after 24 weeks, does that mean we are comfortable with snuffing life? Do we accept the implicit claim that a heartbeat does not signal life? If a heartbeat does not signal life, what does it indicate? Common sense always directed that a heart beating equals life. What does a heartbeat signify if not life? This life-death flexibility is the worst kind of contorted logic.

Perhaps the most frank conclusion is that abortion constitutes the taking of life. Perhaps another is that in this context, medical science and infanticide are intertwined.

Family/government-flexibility- it’s in!

One final topic: The state of Connecticut is coming to the rescue. For parents who play an active role in their children’s health, do not get ahead of yourselves! Connecticut has the solution for parents who do not comply with The State’s wishes. Connecticut lawmakers have come to Hartford on their high horse of state-centric righteousness and have passed through the public health committee (it awaits a full vote before the General Assembly) a bill that eliminates the religious exemption for vaccinations, while keeping the medical one intact. If the bill passes, parents who do not vaccinate their children due to religious reasons will soon see their children unable to attend private or public school.

There is a problem with this setup, however. Our state government is preoccupied with occupying the role of parent that it has forgotten the documents it is bound by: our Connecticut State Constitution, which guarantees a right to education and our federal Constitution, which codifies the right to free exercise of religion.

This bill smacks of prima facie unconstitutionality (unconstitutional on its face) on the state level. Moreover, it is a violation of the First Amendment provisions of free exercise, which has time and again been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court. The state of Connecticut thought it could play parent and is flexing its muscle to do so. It is not a matter of whether there will be legal challenges to this bill; it is just a matter of when.

Full Circle

Taken together, the above examples constitute one gobbledygook soup of societal confusion, moral distortion, and bald-faced illegality. Then again, when you have a culture in which defining sexual orientation, gender, life, and distinctions between government and family yields more questions than answers, it comes as no surprise or shock.

Consensus on concepts such as sex, gender, life, public and private life has become elusive. Confused human beings have made a mockery of basic truths. In turn, those truths have gone into hiding.

In the meantime, I’ll be hanging out with my toddler and finding life’s clarity in the ABCs, 1-2-3s, and calling things as they are, for what they are.

[1] Hartford Courant, Smarter Living section, February 16, 2020, by Darcel Rockett.

[2] Ibid.

[3] https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/14/us/transgender-athletes-connecticut-lawsuit/index.html

[4] https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/tix_dis.html

[5] https://www.healthline.com/health/pregnancy/when-can-you-hear-babys-heartbeat

[6] New York law: https://buffalonews.com/2019/01/22/long-stalled-abortion-bill-passes-new-york-legislature/