Why, yes, as a matter of fact, we DO negotiate with terrorists!

I was babysitting one night for some friends of friends. They had a daughter about five years old and a son about two or three. They came back at around midnight. The daughter had been asleep for hours, but the little boy (who'd been a terror all evening, by the way -- eventually I refused to babysit for these people any more) bounded down the stairs as soon as he heard his mother's voice.

"I have to drive her home," the mother said to her husband, nodding towards me. "Can you get him back to bed? Read him a story or something."

"I want to go with you!" the boy shrieked.

"No, honey, you can't," she said. "It's too late. You have to go to bed."

I expected the boy to have a fit at this, but he didn't. He walked quite calmly over to a bottom-heavy table lamp and put one hand on it. He looked at his mother and waited until he had caught her eye before starting to tip it to one side. In a very deliberate way -- he didn't let go of it or push it over. He just tilted it until it was at an angle that was almost unstable, but not quite. All the while looking at her, eyebrows raised. His whole expression said (without his having to bother to put it into words), "So, what are you going to do about this?"

I was floored. I knew he was bratty, but there was something unnerving -- and, to me at least, enraging -- about his actions. They were so calm and purposeful. If he'd started screaming or throwing a tantrum, that would be obnoxious, but at least it would have been, I don't know, age-appropriate. It could be called a crime of passion, anyway. This couldn't.

I looked at the mother, waiting for her response. She sighed. "I'd better take him with me," she said to her husband. "We'll be back in a few minutes." And the little boy smiled. I still don't know which of them I wanted to smack more -- him or her. In the immortal words of Roz Chast, cartoonist and parent, "What a wimpy, wimpy mom."