The Tantrum That Broke The Internet
Who cares if the US president’s watching? How a two-year-old lost it at the White House
MY TWO-YEAR-OLD daughter Claudia, is usually easygoing by toddler standards – except in the mornings when she demands to strip off all her clothes and don nothing but a fitted dinosaur sheet.
It was precisely her determination to transform household items (dishcloths, flannels, even Chinese-takeaway serviettes) into evening wear that rocketed Claudia to internet fame. It was early April, and we had for once negotiated her into a dress-dress and escorted her to the White House to have her picture taken with President Barack Obama before the annual Passover Seder dinner.
Claudia, however, didn’t want to be in the White House, whatever that was. She wanted to be in her bedroom, emptying the drawers of her changing table in search of more sheets.
“I take off my shoes,” she told me. “No, sweetie, not right now.” “I take off my dress,” she suggested next.
“Claudia, if you could just wait one second—” “I wear a sheet-dress.” “I’m so sorry, sweet girl, but we didn’t bring any sheets tonight!”
That same instant, the hush associated with the entrance of the chief executive fell over the Red Room. But Claudia didn’t care. Claudia wanted a sheet, and she wanted one now. In her fury, she threw herself at the feet of the most famous man in the world. That same instant, Pete Souza, the official White House photographer, walked into the room and snapped a photo.
Two months later, when the White House photo office emailed me a photograph of the incident, it didn’t occur to me that it would interest anyone beyond my circle of family and friends when I posted it on my Facebook page. I then went off to the grocery store. While I was there, my brother tweeted the photo, saying, “This really might be the best picture ever: my niece Claudia throwing a fit at Passover.”
By the time I returned with dinner, Claudia’s tantrum was all over the internet. Over the course of the weekend, it was featured in the Daily Mail, salon.com, huffingtonpost.com, CNN, the Washington Post, and many more. Good Morning America ran multiple segments about her ( after I turned them down for an interview). And everywhere, everyone had a lot to say about Claudia.
Most people were amused and sympathetic. This contingent offered good- natured ripostes: “Guess she voted Republican?” and “So this is what it’s like dealing with John Boehner [ then Speaker of the House of Representatives].”
But I was shocked by what other commenters read into the picture. They saw my political beliefs and the pride I took in my inability to raise a child. (“The ‘she’s just a kid’ excuses are the excuses liberal parents make for their lack of parenting skills.”) They saw my income and my ethnic background: I was a “wealthy Jewish donor” – don’t I wish! – and my daughter, a spoiled brat. One commenter recommended I put Claudia on medication.
As I pored over the comments, I was reminded that actual living humans – in this case, my baby girl – are reduced to memes as every day the web offers up new canvases where other people can project their fears and loathings.
For the meme herself, the most significant outcome of her brush with the big time may have been that three days after my brother’s tweet, she woke up and announced that she was done with nappies.
It was as if, as an international internet celebrity, she suddenly felt compelled to up her game. And that was news I could use.