Born Bad

If there is any doubt in your mind that man is evil and prone to sin, then just take care of a couple of toddlers for an afternoon.

Babies are so sweet. They need you and just lie stationary and wait to be entertained. Then they learn to crawl and are sometimes disappointed when things roll out of their reach. I think it’s when they learn to walk that things really heat up.

Lately I’ve seen the sweetest, cherub faced babies turn into Little Chuckies when they don’t get their way. Hair is pulled, faces scratched, and the seam that holds together the fabric of the universe is split by ear piercing screams of “No! Mine!”.

It occurred to me the other day as I watched my 17 month old slap my 6 year old square in the face that she really was born that way. There is no way that she learned this behavior. We don’t slap the children, they don’t even get spanked (although they might need it sometimes), and we don’t slap each other. She doesn’t go to daycare and I’m fairly certain she didn’t see it on TV. She was angry, things weren’t going her way and she reached out and whacked her sister.

So if a behavior isn’t learned, then it’s innate – right? After a year and a half of teaching her how to eat, walk, talk, hug, and play, I am now teaching her how NOT to slap, whack, pinch, and scream at her siblings! It’s almost like her “default” programming has taken over recently as she has become more and more self aware.

How can something that looks SO sweet have the capability to be SO mean?