Instant Gratification in a Bottle

The Pleasure Principle was developed by Freud and thought to be a character of people where pleasure is sought after and pain is avoided. This type of instant gratification is also thought to be a personality of people who lack the trait of deferred gratification; an absence of will power and self-control. Deferred gratification is thought to be necessary for life success and fundamental to human nature. I have heard of this term ‘deferred gratification’ before but have never thought of it in my own usual, everyday life. Why wouldn’t I want to avoid pain or discomfort? Well, sometimes I most certainly do want to but I also hold myself and my children to standards of living and personal growth and deferred gratification is known to not only be fundamental to human nature but is also necessary for the development of higher thinking.  I know that if I persevere through one undesirable moment without interrupting the full experience, I come out an even better person on the other side and I have seen the same happen with my own children.

I really cannot come up with another example other than the one that triggered this very thought so I will share this true story example. Recently I shared a note on facebook regarding my thoughts on the use of infant and children’s Tylenol or acetaminophen products. The note spawned from the many posts that I have read over time on community boards regarding the use of Tylenol and acetaminophen for teething relief. Then there was a recent recall and some people were quite disgruntled about it. Before this recall ever came along there were many before it so first let me express that the surprise and disgust by so many people that this type of thing would occur comes across to me as naive. Considering the women that I would think would be on these boards with me, I am saddened that there are so many who insist on pretending that drug companies are here to help and that the side effects of their drugs can be tossed to the wayside so easily.  Secondly, I am annoyed that whenever people expect to be caudled no matter their decision so that they are not made to feel guilty. This must be another symptom of the Pleasure Principle. When did speaking of things that make us guilty become an offense? Usually these things that make us feel parental guilt are the things that need some changing…that guilt is coming from the gut while we try to ward off the outside marketing that has told us that we should remove any pain from our lives.  I understand that pain may appear worse for a baby since their method of communication is dramatic crying but I can only assume that a parent who dispenses instant gratification through a medicine dropper to an infant and toddler will do this at the same rate with older children until the parent learns something different. How can we develop what is seemingly a natural instinct for humans when parents are constantly reaching for pain relievers because if the baby keeps crying they won’t get enough sleep or they won’t be able to achieve their own instant gratification or pleasure perception.

There is no argument that we live in a generation of instant gratification. And to dismiss this situation as one that can be skimmed over is missing the point because I’m not making a case to never use pain relief. My case is that pain relief is widely overused, just like antibiotics are. And as we can easily see the side effects of  overusing antibiotics (tooth decay, disrupted digestive system, resistant bacteria, widespread sickness, increased medical costs, etc.) there are also going to be side effects of overusing Tylenol and acetaminophen. Some of those are liver damage (do you know that your 24 month old child does not have liver damage after drinking several bottle of acetaminophin over what is really a short period of time?) Plus, liver damage  can lead to liver failure later in life and of course there is the lack of deferred gratification, the very thing that leads to more will power and self control, things that grow strong, thoughtful people who can win out a pleasure-seeking individual in any race.

I am in no way suggesting that a baby be left in miserable pain so that an adult can gain life success through their own delayed gratification; there are other ways to treat ailments, including herbal and homeopathic remedies but they typically don’t act as fast as Tylenol and a little more thought is usually required with the use of homeopathy and herbs. I know that a lot of people like to say that herbs and homeopathy don’t work but what I really think they mean is that it didn’t work fast enough and they don’t have the patience to find something better.

I won’t disagree that teething tablets and other combination remedies often do not work. Similar to modern medicine, homeopathy can require professional help. But unlike modern medicine, homeopathy approaches the body as a whole and considers how the individual is handling the problem. This means a remedy given to one child for teething may not work for the next so finding a remedy means we have to pay attention to the symptoms for some period of time and with this means the person may have to suffer for a short time (although some pain relief could be given in the meantime until a remedy appears to be helping). Another reason that homeopathic remedies sometimes don’t seem to help is because a higher dose may be needed. Are you seeing how this picture here looks different than giving a fast-acting pain reliever? Are we really sure that just for the sake of time we want to give our children a product that is known to cause liver damage and failure as well as other unknown side effects rather than a remedy that has absolutely no side effects, is completely safe but requires a bit more of a challenge to get it right? Where is our own will power?

There are other topics I could go onto as well that illustrate the degree of instant gratification people are seeking… women are wallowing in epidurals during labor, people don’t like exercise because they sweat and it’s uncomfortable, people don’t like to cook… I hope you can understand that although I do believe that the use of acetaminophen is abused, this is not entirely about Tylenol. It’s about people realizing the depth of  instant gratification we are standing in and how it inhibits personal growth and the resurgence of good character.

Maybe you don’t care about overusing acetaminophen because your gut tells you its okay. And that is fine! By all means, sometimes decisions like these do require parenting from the gut when we just don’t know what to do. But please keep in mind the imbalance of character that instant gratification brings with it.