According to my favorite trusty news source (ahem, Wikipedia) the meaning of Contrarian is:
“a person with a preference for taking a position opposed to that of the majority. Contrarian styles of argument and disagreement have historically been associated with radicalism and dissent.”
It’s also a great word to describe this:
looks innocent enough, doesn't he?
Before all the attachment-parenting love-dovey my-child-does-no-wrong types jumps down my throat please hear me out.
I love this, my middle child. He is a wonderful, sweet, bright, and quite hilarious soul. He has very sweet quite moments when he loves to cuddle and gives giant, long, wonderful head-hugs. He also happens to be a contrarian.
You may have read about some of his antics (like his no-good-horrible-terrible-bad morning) on this site. You may have read my tweets about him on Twitter, where he has his own hashtag, #Devilboy.
Last night, I went to meet his teacher at Back to School Night, where all the children had left a hand-drawn picture on the desk with their favorite part of their new classroom. His was the classroom toilet.
At dinner, upon hearing the menu (no matter what it entails) he HOWLS and SCREAMS and FUSSES because he doesn’t like what we’re having. EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. Last night he actually hid in the pantry, crying until I promised him he wouldn’t have to eat tacos. (I didn’t, and he eventually came out.)
When we all want to go to the park, he wants to stay home.
When we surprise the kids with a trip to the ice cream store, he’d rather not go.
If he asks you a question, he will argue with the answer, a good 90% of the time.
A typical contrarian trope takes the form “everything you know about topic X is wrong”.
When he has a fever, it takes two of us to hold him down to force Tylenol in him and even then he spits it out Excorcist-style.
His rants take on a life of their own, his temper knows no bounds, and his ability to turn our household upside down is absolutely terrifying, despite our efforts to contain, discipline, reason. He is the one person in the household who never, ever wants to go along with the group, give in for the greater good, or give up whatever is on his list of things to do.
Oh, and he refuses to wear underwear.*
The kid’s a contrarian. I’m down with this whole new-parenting-age-psychobabble-research-whatever so I’ve checked out some sites on middle child syndrome and I’m sure it’s a real thing. I know it’s a real thing, it has devil horns on it, and it’s living in my house.
Scientific contrarianism is frequently referred to, favorably, as skepticism and, pejoratively as denialism.
Somebody help me, please. Is there a special way to work magic with contrarian/middle/crazy-ass kids? ‘Cause whatever I’m doin’ ain’t workin’.
*I’m pretty sure this isn’t an evil characteristic but rather a strange custom.
