BITINGBY BECCA EDWARDS
It bites when you have a child who bites.
You worry you will become a social pariah with the parents of non-biters, who also conveniently have perfect Instagram posts of their children with their hair brushed, actually wearing clothes that match. You ask yourself, “Did I labor for [fill in the blank] hours just to give birth to Cujo?” And you question your best course of action. I remember the first time my daughter Ransom (now 12)bit me. At the time, she was 15 months old. We were in the Verizon store buying a new cell phone. What should have taken 20 minutes took two hours, so I do not blame my little lady for getting a little annoyed. But when she bit my shoulder, it stunned me and left a mark. My gut reaction was to bite her back and show her how much biting hurt, but then I remembered a Martin Luther King, Jr. quote: “An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.” I couldn’t bite her back. To do so would promote violence and be the antithesis of what I wanted to teach her at that very moment. And yet I did not want to have Mike Tyson for a daughter. So, Ransom and I had our first public timeout right there in the Verizon store. We were both embarrassed, and she never bit me again.
Flash forward, and Ransom is now around the age of three. She and her twoyear-old sister Ruth Love are duking it out for the children’s book, Moo, Baa, La, La, La, by Sandra Boyton. I did not want to be a helicopter parent and overly intervene before they had the chance to work it out on their own. Instead, I tried to give them cues to help them reach a resolution. It went something like this:
[SCENE: Ransom and Ruth Love playing tug of war over the book and screaming.]
ME: Ransom, can you please use your words and ask Ruth Love for the book?
RANSOM: Ruth Love, give me book.
ME: Ransom, can you please try using the word ‘please’ to ask for the book.
RANSOM: Please book now, Ruth Love.
RUTH LOVE: No.
RANSOM: No! [CHOMP]