Toddler Meltdowns & Today's Politics

Raising children, as most parents - especially those with toddlers - will attest, can be very challenging. Toddlers tend to have very short attention spans. Toddlers lack the reasoning capability to analyze conflicting thoughts. They typically can't determine what's best for them now, and certainly not into the future. When a toddler wants something, they want it NOW.

Even those who never experienced it with their children, have certainly seen it - A young child visits a store with his or her parent. The child spots something they want. When their parent says "no," or otherwise doesn't provide what they want immediately, the child quickly enters "meltdown mode." Some adults - usually parents - look on sympathetically. Other adults shoot judgmental looks at the parent whose child is flailing about on the floor, crying and shouting, "I want it. I want it. Pleaaasseee. I want it," as if to say "Why can't you control your child?"

There's a reason toddlers - and older children - are not allowed to vote. We want them to develop their reasoning powers, before allowing them to vote in our nation's elections.

According to the "talking head" pundits and pollsters today, the American public - and likely voters - are signaling that they're content to behave as if they are toddlers.

Collectively, we're mad as hell. And, like a toddler in the midst of a meltdown, there's no reasoning with us. We intend to take out our anger and frustration over lost jobs, lower wages, lost savings, and failure to deliver on "our" special interest demands, on everyone we can, even if they're not the real problem.

This election year, our choices are very clear. Do we vote based on our "inner toddler" or our "inner adult?" Do we vote out of frustration, anger, and fear? Or, do we vote for our future, the future of our children, and the future of our nation?

There's still time to decide.

To prove the pundits wrong, we need to seek out unbiased sources of information (as best we can in today's angry, highly polarized, nation). We need to carefully listen to opposing viewpoints. We need to research all the issues, not just the issues involving "our" special interests, but also those issues supported by others. Which, if any, of these issues will allow our nation to move forward?

As adults, what we do will affect generations of toddlers to come. We need to demand of ourselves, what most of us demand of our children as they grow older - Don't yell or fight. Study hard. Seek out answers. Think before you act.

Analyze the real issues (usually not found in vicious attack ads) thoughtfully and carefully.

Then, VOTE.