Donald Trump Was Once a Small Boy

On a mid-December Tuesday several years ago my grandson Jack was riled at something.   It may have been something his sister Maddie, my wife Wendy or I said.  Or didn’t say.   But he was riled and let us know.  At two, his usually angelic face was capable of possession-like transformation.  He was fuming.  Maddie wanted to know why he was acting like that.

I quipped, “Because he’s two.”   I didn’t expect him to hear or respond.  It was a throw away line that I thought would sink quickly in the turbulence of the moment.

But it is at great peril that we ever think a throwaway comment will be lost on a small child.  Especially Jack.   He doesn’t miss a trick.   At age two he could be napping in his car seat on the way to the grocery store and if something interesting was uttered in the front seat he’d ask, “What are you guys talking about up there?”  

This “rile” had legs.   He remained mad at one or all of us for an eternity – about three minutes.   He stood, stoic and steaming, arms crossed with his back to us.   Every effort to console him or to ask why he was riled prompted an immediate turn to face us with a fierce, dark scowl and a scream. “BECAUSE I’M TWO!!!!!”   Laughing would have humiliated him.   It took a great deal of restraint to repress a giggle.

Later that evening we went out to dinner.  “Out to dinner” is a bit too fancy.   Maddie, Wendy, Jack and I were in a local sports bar, the Lazy Dog. The kids were eating their sumptuous Signature Mac ‘n’ Cheese, which, by look and taste was Kraft from a box. 

“Dining” with Jack and Maddie at that time was like trying to eat dinner in a roomful of puppies.  Jack was upside down trying to imprint the soles of his sneakers on the mirror at the end of the booth.  At age six, Maddie always enjoyed her time under the table at any establishment.  I suppose it’s a kind of archaeology, as places like the Lazy Dog do not hastily remove artifacts of their culture.  When Maddie dripped juice from her canned Mandarin orange side dish on Wendy’s MZ Wallace purse things got a little sticky.   Jack was concerned.   Two year-olds don’t mind being riled themselves, but they are very sensitive to others’ riles.   He wondered out loud, “Why is Goomy (Wendy’s grandma nickname) riled?”  

I responded, without skipping a beat, “Because she’s two.”

Jack howled.   It was short-of-breath-eyes-watering -body-fluid-release laughter.   Maddie laughed too, but at that age nearly everything was funny, especially if it involved body fluids. 

He understood the joke.  Everything about the joke: the absurdity of Goomy being two; the fact that there is a correlation between age two and temper tantrums; the joke on himself for using “BECAUSE I’M TWO” as fuel for a sustained rile. 

On the way out of the restaurant, Jack picked up a chip of ice from the floor and popped it into his mouth.  Because he’s two. 

There is a larger dimension to anger than this good-humored look at Jack’s “rile” of uncertain provenance.   Was he actually angry?   Probably.  But research makes it clear that the question, “Was he actually angry?” is much more important than it may seem.  

Some fascinating research about emotions – in adults and children – reveals surprising aspects of how boys’ emotions are responded to.   When observing an infant in distress – specifically, reacting to the mild shock of a jack-in-the-box popping open - adults describe a boy’s reaction as “angry.” Girls’ reactions are reported as “surprised,” “sad,”or “scared.” This bias remained consistent even if the adult was told that the infant was a boy, when she was actually a baby girl!   In other words, we are conditioned to quickly assume anger as the dominant emotion expressed by boys, even in the crib.  

Healthy development requires expression and cultivation of a diversity of emotions.   Conventional wisdom holds that boys have a less diverse and broad range of emotions; that girls have a rich repertoire of emotions and boys are simpler – either angry or happy.

Researchers at Harvard discovered the counterintuitive.  Small boys may have a wider range and intensity of emotions than small girls!  Other studies show that mothers’ conversations with daughters are filled with a diverse emotional vocabulary.  In stark contrast, their conversations with boys focus, often exclusively, on anger.   Boys’ experiences with anger are noticed.   Anger is inferred where anger may be absent.  As a result, anger is inadvertently cultivated.   This leaves other, more vulnerable emotions ignored and underdeveloped.    

This underdevelopment is a major contributor to the broken men in our culture.  Research is clear:  Boys who lack diversity in emotional expression, particularly a dearth of vulnerable emotions, do less well in school.  Young men who deny emotional vulnerability are more likely to engage in substance abuse.  Men are more likely to suppress emotions of vulnerability leading to higher incidence of depressive symptoms.   Suppression of vulnerability is highly correlated with male violence.   

Clearly, the inability to express and regulate diverse emotions leads to behavioral issues in boys and men.  Yet the ability to regulate emotions requires practice and boys are deprived of practice by social norms that ignore or misinterpret boys’ emotions as anger.  

The corollary effect of narrowing boys’ emotions to anger is that they experience frequent disapproval.  Anger is met with strong rebuke and punishment.   If anger is the dominant emotion attributed to boys, and anger is met with scorn and punishment, then what is a boy left with?   “Nothing” is the too frequent and very sad answer.    The repeated experience of “nothing” is a strong factor in the development of a narcissist or sociopath.    

This may be why Donald Trump seems to have no laughter or tenderness in his life.  When men like Trump were young, vulnerable boys and stood with arms crossed and red-faced, perhaps someone should have asked, “What are you feeling?”  I suspect Donald Trump was a lonely little boy.  The world could have been spared a whole passel of trouble if someone had helped develop his emotional diversity.