CHAPTER XIV

THE ATTITUDE OF PARENTS TO CHILDREN

[Sidenote: The affective reactions of the parent towards the child]

In dealing thus far with the psychic aspects of the filio-parental relations in their origin, nature and development, we have for the most part based our considerations on the standpoint of the child rather than on that of the parent. Such a course would seem to be justified from the genetic point of view by the fact that every individual has first to be a child before he can become a parent, and that consequently, though his attitude as a parent is very liable to be influenced by his experience as a child, there can be no corresponding influence of a converse nature. As a matter of fact, however, we have, in the course of our consideration of the psychic development of the child in relation to the influences emanating from the family, fairly often had occasion to concern ourselves at least indirectly with the mental attitude of the parents as a factor in this development.

Thus we have seen that the direction of the child's affection to the parent of the opposite sex rather than to the one of his own sex is probably determined largely by the extent of the affection which the child in his turn receives from the two parents respectively; the heterosexual inclinations of the parents causing them on the whole, and in the absence of any powerful factors tending to produce an opposite result, to give their love most freely towards those of their children who are of the opposite sex to their own. We have seen too that the nature and duration of the feelings of envy, jealousy and hate which a child is liable to experience towards one or other of its parents are to a very considerable extent dependent on the behaviour of this parent towards the child. It is evident also from our previous considerations that there is likely to be a quantitative as well as a qualitative correspondence between the love and hate which a child may feel towards its parents and the manifestation of corresponding emotions in the parents themselves. All that is left for us to do in this direction is to look a little more closely into some of the factors which determine the nature and extent of the affective reactions of the parent towards the child.

[Sidenote: The instinctive love of parents to children]

[Sidenote: The love of parents to children stands in reciprocal relationship to the parents' other interests and affections]

It is now pretty generally agreed among psychologists that the love of parents to their children takes place in virtue of the formation of a sentiment[200] or organisation of instinctive dispositions about an idea (in this case the idea of the child), and it is further usually supposed that in this sentiment a leading part is played by a particular instinctive disposition--a disposition which manifests itself in consciousness in an emotion of more or less specific quality, to which McDougall, following Ribot, has given the now familiar term "tender emotion." Now there are clear indications that the energy involved in this disposition (like that of all other instinctive dispositions) can play a part--and normally does play a part--in many other sentiments besides that which is concerned in the love of a parent towards his (or her) child. For this reason the emotional outflow along the lines of this latter sentiment varies to some extent in inverse proportion to the outflow along the lines of other sentiments. Thus the amount of love which a parent can bestow upon a child is limited by the amount of the affection and interest which he bestows upon other persons and other things. The parent who has no other occupation in life than the care of his or her children is usually bound to these children by emotional ties of a much closer, more intimate and more intensive nature than is one whose energies are partially absorbed by outside interests and occupations. The parent of a single child will, as a rule, be more strongly attached to that child than the parent of many children will be to any one of his. Again, the parent whose sexual emotions and tendencies have but little opportunity for discharge will be apt to lavish a greater amount of affection on his children than one who is leading a more active sexual life. Thus it is that widowers, widows and those who are unhappily married[201] frequently display a more than normal degree of attachment to their children, the latter receiving, in addition to the love that would ordinarily fall to their share, the displaced affection which would otherwise find its outlet in the love of wife or husband. For this reason the tie between such parents and their children is apt to be more than usually close; and all psychological characteristics which are produced by such a tie will occur more readily in these cases than in others. In order to avoid this emotional overloading of the filio-parental tie, it will usually be necessary for such parents to find compensation elsewhere for the energy which cannot be directed to its normal goal, and for the measures undertaken with a view to the prevention of undue fixation of the children's love upon their parents to be prosecuted with more than usual care and energy.

[Sidenote: The consequent jealousy between parent and child]

The fact that the love available for offspring and for spouse respectively stand thus to some extent in reciprocal relation to one other, renders inevitable a certain amount of competition for this love, whenever the demands from both sides are strong and persistent. We have already seen how from this source jealousy may arise in the child towards the parent of his or her own sex. A similarly conditioned jealousy will often arise also in the parent, though in this case the hostile feelings will frequently be confined to the Unconscious and will be discoverable only indirectly through their manifestations or through a process of analysis. This jealousy may nevertheless be productive of much harm in family life; and, when present in high intensity, may lead to permanent estrangement and bitterness between parents and children just as surely as may corresponding feelings on the part of the child.

[Sidenote: Conflicting interests of parents and children]

[Sidenote: The sacrifices involved in parenthood]

Just as in the case of children the hostile emotions towards the parents that arise from jealousy are liable to be powerfully reinforced by those due to more general interference with the child's desires, so too in the case of the parents, any ill-feelings that they may bear towards their children as a result of jealousy are likely to be complicated by other causes of hostility. If it be to some extent inevitable that children should come to regard their parents as obstacles to the full attainment of their own desires and as unwelcome causes of interference with their most cherished activities, parents have at least equal reason to complain similarly of their children. The responsibility, the effort, the anxiety, involved in rearing children, diminish very considerably the time and energy available for more directly personal occupations and enjoyments. To some extent the individual inevitably sacrifices himself in becoming a parent, in accordance with the general biological law which Spencer has designated the antagonism between individuation and genesis; and this sacrifice of personal comforts, pleasures, satisfactions and ambitions does not as a rule take place without some degree of resentment being felt against those whose existence necessitates the sacrifice. Even where--owing to robust health, abundant energy, ample means, state relief or other circumstances--children demand but little sacrifice of the major aims and occupations of life, the very considerable difference between the points of view of children and those of adults and the largely incompatible nature of the conditions and activities that appeal to their respective minds tend to make the constant presence of children, especially within the confines of a small home, inevitably to some extent a cause of annoyance to the parents. As Bernard Shaw[202] so well points out, children are indeed to some extent necessarily and unavoidably a nuisance to grown-up persons; with their illregulated and impulsive energy and their disregard of the habits and conventions to which their seniors have become accustomed, they constitute an ever present menace to the comfort and tranquillity of adult life--a menace from which even the most devoted parent must sometimes wish that he could free himself.

[Sidenote: Their influence on the mother]

The mother, owing to the greater demands which children make upon her time and health and energy is perhaps that one of the parents to experience most keenly such hostile feelings, though the existence of a strong counter-impulse towards maternal love will often insure repression of these feelings into the unconscious; so that it usually requires a process of analysis to reveal the often strong resentment that a mother may entertain towards the child who so seriously interferes with her more directly individual needs and aspirations[203].

[Sidenote: On the father]

The interference of children with the activities and desires of the father is usually less direct and the ill-will which fathers bear towards their children is therefore more apt to be aroused in consequence of jealousy than is the corresponding feeling of the mother. Nevertheless, in the case of the father too, there almost always sooner or later arises some degree of interference with his pleasure, his comfort, his work or his ambitions; so that he feels that his children constitute a burden which seriously hampers his individual progress or enjoyment.

[Sidenote: Identification of the child with its grandparent]

The hostile feelings of parents towards their children which take their origin from one or more of these sources are often powerfully stimulated and reinforced by an unconscious process in virtue of which the child is identified with the parent's own parent (the child's grandparent). This tendency to identify child with grandparent is one which would seem to be deeply implanted in the human mind[204]. Thus in several parts of the world grandparents are supposed to become re-incarnated in their grandchildren--a belief which is probably responsible for the widespread practice (observed among others by the ancient Greeks) of naming a child after its grandparent, especially in the case of eldest sons who frequently receive the name of their paternal grandfather[205].

[Sidenote: Causes of this similarity of parent-child to previous child-parent relationship]

For the grounds of this belief and the tendencies which have given rise to it, it is probable that we must look to the similarities between the relations of parent to child and those which had existed a generation earlier between child and parent. As we have just seen, the feelings that are liable to be evoked by these relationships are in certain respects not dissimilar, and it would appear as though the situation in which an individual is placed when he becomes a parent serves to call up in him some of the partially forgotten and partially outgrown emotions and tendencies which he had experienced in his own childhood and to direct them now upon his child in the same way as he had formerly directed them upon his parent. Thus the new position in which a father finds himself in competition with his son for the affection of his wife revives in the Unconscious a memory of the former situation in which as a child he competed with his father for the love of his mother.

[Sidenote: The "phantasy of the reversal of generations"]

The identification of child with grandparent would seem to be helped also by the intimate connection with a curious but not infrequent product of imagination which has been called by Ernest Jones "the phantasy of the reversal of generations[206]." According to this phantasy--to which attention had also been called by psychologists other than those of the psycho-analytic school, notably by Sully[207]--it is supposed that, as children grow bigger and finally attain to adult stature, their parents, as they increase in age, undergo a corresponding diminution; so that eventually a complete reversal of size as regards the two generations is attained, those who were once parents being now reduced to a position very similar to that of children, while the original children, through their increase in size and power, are themselves able to behave in a quasi-parental manner to their parents. The ultimate psychological foundations of this quaint belief are as yet not clearly understood, though it is fairly certain that the notions of personal immortality and of metempsychosis, together with the great emotional significance in the child's mind of the ideas connected with bodily size, play an important part in this connection. Whatever be the origin of this phantasy, the persistence of some remnants of it in the Unconscious is admirably adapted to serve as a means whereby an individual may identify his children with his parents and then direct upon the former the hostile emotions aroused in connection with the latter. The fact that such an individual is now possessed of superior strength and power, whereas formerly he had been relatively weak and helpless, makes it tempting for him to use this opportunity for taking revenge for the real or supposed injuries he had suffered in his childhood[208]. In this way children are liable to become sometimes the innocent victims of bullying or nagging which, according to the principles of justice, are due to their grandparents rather than to themselves. When combined with a violent parent hatred, such identification of children with their grandparents may take on tragic proportions and lead to the direst consequences; and it is probable that in the majority if not in all of those sad cases, where a parent conceives a permanent and unreasoning antipathy to one or more of his children, the foundations of the dislike are to be found in such a combination of unconscious or semi-conscious factors.

This process of identification is not however operative only with regard to hatred. It may exert also a powerful influence upon the direction of love and is often of special importance where parents definitely select a favourite from among their children, this favourite child being then invested with the love that was formerly directed to the favourite parent[209]. For this reason too parents may often be desirous that their children should adopt the profession, mode of life, beliefs or habits of their (the childrens') grandparents[210].

[Sidenote: The effect of parent-child love on the attitude of parents to each other]

In all cases where a parent resents the coming into being or the presence of children, and especially in those where the resentment is based largely upon jealousy, some degree of displeasure is apt to be directed upon the other parent, who is regarded as responsible for the existence of the unwelcome intruder or as transferring to him an undue proportion of attention and affection. In this respect the situation recalls in the parents mind the earlier one in which, in his own childhood, he resented the love of his parents for each other, and in consequence of which the love which he himself bore to one of his parents became converted into, or was mixed with, hatred and contempt (_cp._ p. 110). Thus a father may experience towards his wife something of those feelings of outraged jealousy which he had formerly harboured towards his mother--a resuscitation and transference of feelings of this kind being rendered all the easier by the fact that his wife is very probably already to some extent unconsciously identified with his mother, so that the whole original situation is lived through again with the substitution of wife for mother and of child (especially of course in the case of a boy) for father.

[Sidenote: The Couvade]

It has recently been shown by Reik[211] that this last mentioned factor of the resentment against the wife together with the previously discussed jealousy and hatred of the child are capable of throwing a very considerable amount of light upon certain customs practised amongst primitive peoples upon the occasion of the birth of a child--customs the origin and nature of which it appears at first sight very difficult to understand. To these customs we may well devote a brief consideration here, since they seem peculiarly adapted to bring out some of the most important aspects of the unconscious feelings of parents toward their offspring and--incidentally--toward one another. The customs in question are generally comprehended under the single term Couvade and may be divided, following Frazer, into two main groups:--

(1) the pre-natal or pseudo-maternal Couvade, which aims primarily and ostensibly at a magical transference of the mother's labour pains on to the person of the father, the father pretending to undergo what the mother experiences in reality;

(2) the post-natal or dietetic Couvade, in which the father pretends to be weak or ailing for a certain time after the birth of his child, during which time he keeps to his bed and refrains from eating certain foods.

[Sidenote: The pre-natal Couvade as an expression of ambivalent feelings towards the wife]

As regards the pre-natal Couvade, it is obvious that the occasion of his wife's labour is one which is liable to arouse strong, and to some extent conflicting, emotions in the father. The danger and distress to which the mother is exposed naturally tend to arouse in the father feelings of sympathy and anxiety together with a desire to help and to alleviate the suffering to the best of his ability--an attitude which finds expression in an attempt to transfer the pain according to the principles of homoeopathic magic. At the same time the position of the mother is such as to stimulate in the father any hostile and cruel wishes he may entertain towards her, and, though such wishes will generally be confined entirely or principally to the Unconscious, they will usually be present in a greater or a less degree; since, besides any general cause of hostility and any tendency to Sadism (both of which are probably at work to some extent), there is liable to occur the more specific resentment connected with the bringing into existence of a rival, who may usurp much of the mother's care and affection which the father had hitherto enjoyed alone. There is reason to suppose therefore that at certain levels of the father's mind there is often present an actual enjoyment in the contemplation of the mother's sufferings and even a wish that she may die. In taking upon himself the mother's pains, the father is therefore, at one and the same time, doing his best to help the mother, subjecting himself to a talion punishment for desiring the mother to feel pain, and placing himself in a position more thoroughly to express and realise her suffering.

[Sidenote: The belief in demons]

A similar attitude is indicated by the beliefs and practices with regard to demons which are frequently found associated with the Couvade. Demons are, from the psychological point of view, merely projections of thoughts and tendencies of the unconscious mind, and the demons who are supposed to be inflicting pain upon the mother are therefore an expression of the unconscious desire to inflict such pain. This desire manifests itself also in not a few of the measures which are taken to drive away the demons, measures which, though ostensibly undertaken for the benefit of the mother are in reality calculated to cause her fright, pain or discomfort, such as shooting, shouting, lighting fires in her proximity, playing with swords or even beating her.

[Sidenote: The post-natal Couvade results principally from hostile feelings towards the child]

While the pre-natal Couvade is thus principally the manifestation of repressed hostility towards the mother, the post-natal Couvade would seem to arise chiefly as the result of a similar attitude towards the child. This is shown by the fact that the practices associated with this aspect of the Couvade are held to be necessary for, or at least conducive to, the life and health of the newly born infant, who is regarded as peculiarly liable to be affected by injudicious behaviour on the part of the father; it is also shown by the fact that the father is often held responsible for any evil that may befall the child during the first days of its existence; thus indicating an appreciation of the real unconscious tendency of the father to do the child some harm. As regards the prohibition of certain foods, it would seem that this is ultimately traceable to a repression of the tendency to kill and eat the child (and through him the grandfather whom he represents) a tendency which we considered in the last chapter, and one to which most, if not all, taboos on foods would appear in the last resort very largely to depend. The father's imaginary illness is also to some extent influenced by his hostile feelings against the mother:--negatively, in that by keeping to his bed he is prevented from doing her harm; positively, in that by compelling her to attend on him in his pretended helplessness, he forces her to work at a time when rest and freedom from trouble would have been more welcome.

[Sidenote: The Couvade as an assertion of the father's rights]

Certain other students of the Couvade, such as Bachofen, are probably to some extent right too in maintaining that the practice represents an assertion by the father of his rights and privileges, being connected thus with the transition from mother-descent to father-descent. Certain it is that through the practice the father emphasises his share of the parenthood and thus effectually prevents any tendency to regard the mother as the sole, or even as the chief, producer and guardian of the child. In so doing, he also, we may suspect, endeavours to produce a compensation for the lack of attention from which he might otherwise suffer at this time, owing to the fact that the mother's share of parenthood is at the moment of birth by nature so much more prominent than that of the father.

[Sidenote: The corresponding attitude in modern life]

This feeling of inferiority is frequently shared by fathers in modern civilised societies, who at the birth of their children are often unpleasantly impressed by their own uselessness and unimportance, and are easily led to complain of neglect or inattention, sometimes even going so far as unconsciously to produce in themselves some more or less psycho-genetic malady, in order to claim care and sympathy from those about them and to prevent a too exclusive preoccupation with the mother. In other ways too it is evident that many of the mental tendencies which underlie the practices connected with the Couvade are still rife in modern life. By his exaggerated excitement and anxiety, a father will often betray the conflicting nature of the emotions that beset him at the time of the birth of his child; while the manifold crude superstitions and practices and the numerous unreasonable beliefs and attitudes that are connected with pregnancy and birth serve further to demonstrate the archaic, and therefore fundamental, nature of the ideas and feelings that centre round these events[212].

[Sidenote: Parent-child hostility in later life]

The hostility which a parent may harbour towards his child or children from the causes we have been considering will, under happy conditions of individual and family development, tend naturally to diminish as time passes and permits of adjustment to the new circumstances occasioned by the existence of the children. More especially of course, the feelings of hatred and jealousy, which may originally have been aroused, will usually be overcome, or at least adequately held in check, by the feelings of parental love which are brought into play by contact with the child and by the process of providing for its needs. Even in the most devoted parents there usually remains however some remnant of jealousy or resentment that lurks in the Unconscious and can be detected by the process of Psycho-Analysis. This is especially the case as regards the relations of parents to the children of their own sex, where the motive of jealousy is liable to be added to the other motives that arise as a result of the sacrifices that have to be incurred by the parent. In general however it may be safely asserted that in no case does the very real antagonism that exists between the activities and enjoyments of the father and mother as individuals and as parents respectively fail to manifest itself in some degree of mental conflict, and that in no case are the hostile feelings against the children that result from this antagonism entirely abolished from the mind.

[Sidenote: New factors influencing the attitude of parents to children in later life]

As time proceeds and children grow up, two new factors of great importance are liable to be added to those that determine the attitude of parents towards their children, although in many cases one or both of these factors may have been present in germinal form from the beginning. Both factors are connected with the biological truth that in the history of the race the child is the natural successor and substitute of the parent; but while having this much in common, they differ markedly in their psychological and social nature and effects, one factor tending to produce envy and hatred towards the children, the other love, pride and joy in their success.

[Sidenote: Envy of childrens' superiority]

The first of these two factors consists in the unwelcome realisation that the child will shortly be, or perhaps already is, the equal or even the superior of the parent in certain of the more important of life's aspects. Thus the father may become painfully aware of the fact that he is being gradually but certainly outmatched by his son in strength or skill or learning; while the mother may similarly find herself becoming outrivalled by her daughter in beauty, charm, accomplishments or intellectual power. This awareness on the parent's part of the increasing failure of their own powers relatively to those of their children is naturally liable to increase the bitterness that they may already feel towards their children for other reasons. Just as the self-interests of the parents formerly caused them to grudge the care, attention and effort which the existence of the children demanded, so now their pride and self-love may cause them to grudge their children that superiority which nature in the course of time bestows upon them.

[Sidenote: Parents' identification of themselves with their children]

It might well seem indeed as though some degree of ill-feeling on these grounds would be inevitable in all parents in whom the self-regarding sentiments were strongly or even normally developed. Fortunately however it would appear that there exists a way by which the hatred and unhappiness arising from this source can to a very large extent be converted into feelings of an opposite and socially more satisfactory character. It is here that there comes into play the second of the two factors mentioned above. This factor consists of the process whereby the parent identifies himself with his child, as it were incorporates the child into his larger self and is thus able to take pleasure in the increasing powers of the child as if they were his own. We have already had occasion to study the corresponding process of identification in the mind of the child; the child tends naturally to identify himself with his parents or their substitutes, seeking thereby an increase of his own power and satisfaction. For precisely similar reasons the parent, as old age approaches (and even before then), will tend to identify himself with his child, endeavouring thus to find compensation for the diminution of his own personal capacity. Thus a father may regard the successes and failures of his son in his scholastic and professional career with the same personal interest, the same intimate emotional response as if they were his own, while the mother often follows her daughters' erotic ambitions and adventures, her matrimonial and parental life with a similar intensity of feeling.

[Sidenote: This identification as a means of obtaining immortality]

This identification plays moreover a further and perhaps still more important part inasmuch as it affords a means of overcoming the finality of individual death, and insures the parent, through his children and ultimately through their descendants, the nearest approach to material immortality that can be hoped for here on earth. The love of children and interest in their welfare which springs from the altruistic and object-loving tendencies involved in the parental instincts may thus become fused with the strongly egoistic tendencies grouped together under the self-preserving and self-regarding instincts and sentiments; that dearest and most powerful wish of the individual, _qua_ individual--the desire for immortality--thus obtaining satisfaction in the same way and at the same time as the strongest and most distinctive of all altruistic impulses--those which minister to the needs of the race through the love and care which is bestowed upon children by their parents. A reconciliation of the egoistic and the altruistic, of the personal and the racial trends, is thus brought about--a reconciliation which may be of the greatest value to the individual, to the family and to the larger social organism of which they both form a part.

[Sidenote: Vicarious enjoyments of children's pleasures and successes]

Not only is a parent capable of obtaining through his children the satisfaction attendant upon a prolongation of his own existence; he may also through them enjoy vicariously benefits, privileges, successes and pleasures of which he himself has been deprived or has failed to reap advantage. What the pessimist von Hartmann has styled the third stage of humanity's illusion with regard to the possibility of happiness--the idea that the pleasures which we have ourselves failed to find may nevertheless be enjoyed by those that come after us--is nowhere more strongly rooted than in the minds of parents when they think of the future of their offspring. Whether the underlying hope be illusory or not, there can be no doubt that many parents (and these on the whole of the nobler minded sort) are willing to labour that their children may enjoy the result of their efforts, to amass riches that their children may have the power that wealth confers, or even to acquiesce in personal failure, if only their children may thereby be brought nearer to success.

[Sidenote: Its sociological significance]

This aspect of the process of identification is one which, we may very reasonably expect, will tend to play an increasing rôle as mental development proceeds and men come to work more and more with distant ends in view. If this expectation is correct, the aspect in question is probably one of very great biological and sociological importance, for even under present conditions it is clearly of much value in stimulating effort and in fostering thoroughness, far-sightedness and care. If a man realises that on his labours are dependent not only his own happiness and well being but those of his children and his children's children, he possesses one of the highest but at the same time one of the most efficient incentives to truly moral conduct to which the developed human mind is open[213].

[Sidenote: The development of the child requires a corresponding readjustment of the parents' attitude]

[Sidenote: This is as necessary for the parent as for the child]

In order that the benefits and compensations attendant upon an identification of this sort may be achieved, it is necessary that there should take place a gradual change of attitude towards the child on the part of the parent--a change which is very necessary also upon other grounds. In the fourth and fifth chapters of this book we studied the manner in which the successful development of the child requires an ever increasing degree of emancipation from the ties of affection and dependence which bind him to the parent. The proper carrying out of this emancipation requires a corresponding loosening of the ties that bind the parent to the child, involving a readjustment in the direction of the parent's interests and affections. If the parent continues to lavish on the child, as he grows up, the same amount of attention and affection that he required in infancy, the normal development of the child's love impulses is liable to be very seriously impeded; and should the child, in spite of this difficulty, attain the stage of directing his love outside the family, the parent is bound to suffer disappointment at what appears to him (or at least to his unconscious mind) to be the thanklessness and faithlessness of his child, and to feel jealousy and hatred towards the person who has supplanted him in the child's affection. Similarly, should the parent too long or too extensively afford protection to the child, exercise authority over him or take over responsibility from him, the child will inevitably find it difficult to acquire the necessary degree of emancipation from the parent's care and jurisdiction; and should he after all succeed in acquiring such emancipation, the parent will certainly suffer as the result of being deprived all too suddenly and unwillingly of the directive power over the child which he had hitherto enjoyed, and of the outlet for his interests and emotional tendencies, which the care of a child had hitherto afforded. The extreme demands on the energies and affections of the parents (particularly on those of the mother) caused by the utter helplessness of the human infant grow progressively less as the child develops. The natural course of events demands therefore on the part of the parents a gradual modification, redistribution and redirection of the emotions and interests that centred round the child in its early life; an undue prolongation of the tendencies natural to the early days of parenthood must necessarily in the long run be detrimental to the true interest both of child and parent.

[Sidenote: Difficulty and importance of this readjustment]

Obvious as these considerations may well seem to be, the logical carrying out of the conclusions to which they point is often far from easy. In practice it is often as hard for parents to wean themselves from their primitive attitude towards their children, as it is for the children themselves to acquire the necessary mental and moral independence of their parents. The intense and profound emotions stirred up in the parent by his relation to the child are not readily displaced into any other channel, and fixation at a level only suited to the early stages of the filio-parental relation may easily result. The consequent struggle of the parent to keep possession of the child gives rise to some of the most serious and tragic problems of family life. It is one of the chief causes of the friction that so often exists between the older and younger generations of the same family; it tends, as we have seen, to hamper the mental and moral development of children and to foster in them psychical conflicts which may produce permanently evil effects upon their character: in the parents themselves it often favours selfishness and real disregard for the children's welfare, under the guise of altruistic tenderness and care; and finally it causes much unhappiness to the parents when, as inevitably happens to some extent, they observe that, in spite of all their efforts, their children are in one manner or another drifting from them, as by coming under the influence of friends who are outside the circle of the parents' acquaintance, by the adoption of habits, interests or careers that are opposed to family tradition, or by marriage to persons who to the parents' eyes appear to be unsuitable[214].

[Sidenote: The attitude of parents to the marriage of their children]

The question of marriage is, under existing conditions one of special importance in this connection, since nothing else (with the exception perhaps of permanent separation in space) tends to cut off individuals to an equal extent from the direct influence and contact of their parents. Parents who ardently desire to retain a strong influence over their children are therefore as a rule opposed to the marriage of the latter, and usually display marked antagonism to their sons or daughters-in-law: an antagonism which is the source of very frequent domestic unhappiness. Since the marriage of their children is however in many cases difficult or impossible to avert, such parents will often seek to minimise the disturbing effect of marriage by arranging that their children shall live near them after marriage or that they shall marry a partner whom they regard as suitable. In estimating suitability for this purpose, they are usually guided by the extent to which the partner in question is likely to constitute a serious obstacle to the operation of their own (the parents') influence. Hence it often comes about that the persons selected are sexually unattractive, of weak character or deficient in intellectual power[215].

[Sidenote: Means of avoiding insufficient parental re-adjustment]

The avoidance of the evils consequent upon the insufficient readjustment of the parents attitude towards their children is one of the most pressing tasks of an enlightened hygiene of family life. In the accomplishment of this task it would seem that there are two factors which are of great importance: in the first place, the happiness of the relationship between the two parents themselves (for, as we have seen, it is especially in cases when marriage is unsuccessful that there is likely to be an excessive outflow of emotion in the direction of the children); in the second place, the maintenance of outside interests, hobbies or occupations throughout the period of parenthood and the gradual reinforcement of such interests as the growth of the children renders the demand upon the parent's energy less extensive and continuous. Where the circumstances in these two respects are satisfactory, they usually permit of the necessary readjustment of parental energies with the minimum of friction and suffering.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 200: Mr. Shand's term, adopted by McDougall, is perhaps (in England at any rate) the most generally used and understood in this connection. The term Constellation is, however, used in the same sense by psycho-analytic writers. A Sentiment (or Constellation) differs from a complex only in that it manifests itself openly in consciousness, whereas the complex is unconscious.]

[Footnote 201: Often, too, unmarried mothers; though in this case, owing to the fact that under existing social conditions children born out of wedlock cause more than the usual amount of anxiety and trouble, love is very liable to be complicated or even replaced by hate.]

[Footnote 202: "Parents and Children."]

[Footnote 203: Thus the analysis of dreams occurring during pregnancy would seem to show that a surprisingly large number of these have as their principal motive the death of the child which the mother carries in her womb. Nor do such death wishes on the part of the mother fail to manifest themselves on occasion in the mother's waking thoughts and actions. Abortion and attempts at abortion are of course extremely common (especially where, through ignorance, carelessness or legislative interference, the more humane method of preventive sexual intercourse is not practised), but, even after birth, attempts of one kind or another on the lives of children are by no means rare, even in civilised societies to-day. (The practice of infanticide in more primitive communities is of course notorious). I am assured by one who has good opportunities for observation on this matter that "practical child murder (by slow and safe methods) is far commoner than the newspaper reading public imagines: and it is usually the mother who attempts the process".

As a milder method of disposing of an unwanted child, a mother will often attempt to leave it in some institution for the care of children. So much is this the case that almost the first question the authorities of such institutions have to ask themselves, when the mother brings a child, is whether she is trying to get rid of it.]

[Footnote 204: See _e.g._ Frazer, "Totemism and Exogamy," III, 298.]

[Footnote 205: See _e. g._ Frazer, "Totemism and Exogamy," II, 302. "Taboo and the Perils of the Soul," 370.]

[Footnote 206: "Papers on Psycho-Analysis," 658.]

[Footnote 207: "Studies of Childhood," 105.]

[Footnote 208: This is sometimes shown quite openly in poor families, where the parents "don't believe in their children having a better time than they did" and where the children will not infrequently console themselves for the sufferings they endure at the hands of their parents by the thought of what they in their turn when grown up, will do to their children.

Often however, the cruelty inflicted from this motive is rationalised as a desire to avoid spoiling the child and to prepare him for the rough time that he will have in later life. (_Cp._ this with the motives underlying the infliction of punishment at initiation ceremonies among primitive peoples, p. 83.).]

[Footnote 209: _Cp._ Brill, "Psychanalysis: Its Theory and Practical Application," 279ff.]

[Footnote 210: The identification of the child with its grandparent is of course not without effect upon the mind of the child himself, where it is reinforced by a variety of other motives, such as:--the wish to become the parent of his own parent (_i. e._ the corresponding notion to that in the mind of the child's parent which we have just been considering), the wish to dispense with his parent (_cp._ p. 109), the projection on to the grandparent of the grandiose ideas formerly entertained with regard to the parent (_cp._ p. 55), and finally the results of the happy relationship that often exists between child and grandparent (owing to the fact that the grandparents are as a rule less responsible for the child's upbringing and education and less stern and vigorous in the assertion of their authority). As a consequence there may arise in the child a strong tendency to imitate the grandparents--a tendency that may constitute an important factor in moulding the child's beliefs, attitudes, desires, and occupations. _Cp._ Ernest Jones, "Papers on Psycho-Analysis," 652, ff.]

[Footnote 211: "Die Couvade und die Psychogenese der Vergeltungsfurcht." _Imago_, 1914, III.]

[Footnote 212: As an example of an attitude obviously akin to one of the main tendencies underlying the Couvade--a desire to inflict pain upon the mother--we may mention the strong objection that was originally taken to the use of anaesthetics in midwifery, on the ground that the suffering of pain in childbirth was a just punishment for sin and that it was therefore ethically undesirable to seek to do away with or abate this pain.]

[Footnote 213: For these reasons it would seem very undesirable to tamper to any appreciable extent with the motives that may impel a man to work for the advantage of his immediate posterity; as would be done for instance, by any prohibition to transmit property to heirs, or by any measure that too greatly diminished the value of such property, such as an excessive death duty.

What seems to be to some extent the American ideal of each generation "making good" in their own persons, is of course based mainly on perfectly sound ethical and psychological considerations. There is nothing in these considerations however which is incompatible with the hereditary transmission of wealth or rank. On the contrary, it would seem to be an ennobling and inspiring ideal for each generation to start life at a somewhat higher all-round level--material and moral--than the one before it, each one adding a little to the well-being of the family in body and mind and handing on the improvement to its successor.

In spite of the great advantages that may thus follow from the identification of the parent with his children, it behoves us not to overlook one possible danger that may ensue from it, if carried to excess. An individual's actions affect posterity, not only in the persons of his own offspring, but also by their influence on the history of humanity at large; and it would be highly undesirable if, while contemplating the benefit of his own family, an individual ceased to bear in mind his duties to the wider circles of his social environment. The deeds of great men obviously determine to a considerable extent the future of the race. It is however the privilege of all of us to contribute to this history to some degree; hence an enlightened morality must needs emphasise the responsibility that is incurred in this respect even by the humblest, since, by his actions during life, he has to some extent made himself immortal, and influenced the world through all time for good or ill.]

[Footnote 214: It may be well to bear in mind in this connection Mr. Bernard Shaw's striking words from his brilliant essay on Parents and Children (the whole of which deserves most careful reading). On the subject of marriage from the point of view of the parents, he writes with his usual penetration and with a generous understanding of the real difficulties of the situation:--"Take a very common instance of this agonizing incompatibility" (between the point of view of parents and that of the children). "A widow brings up her son to manhood. He meets a strange woman, goes off with and marries her, leaving his mother desolate. It does not occur to him that this is at all hard on her; he does it as a matter of course, and actually expects his mother to receive on terms of special affection, the woman for whom she has been abandoned. If he shewed any sense of what he was doing, any remorse; if he mingled his tears with hers, and asked her not to think too hardly of him because he had obeyed the inevitable destiny of a man to leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, she could give him her blessing and accept her bereavement with dignity and without reproach. But the man never dreams of such considerations. To him his mother's feeling in the matter, when she betrays it, is unreasonable, ridiculous and even odious, as shewing a prejudice against his adorable bride.

"I have taken the widow as an extreme and obvious case; but there are many husbands and wives who are tired of their consorts, or disappointed in them, or estranged from them by infidelities; and these parents, in losing a son or a daughter through marriage, may be losing everything they care for. No parent's love is as innocent as the love of a child; the exclusion of all conscious sexual feeling from it does not exclude the bitterness, jealousy, and despair at loss which characterize sexual passion; in fact, what is called a pure love may easily be more selfish and jealous than a carnal one. Anyhow, it is plain matter of fact that naively selfish people sometimes try with fierce jealousy to prevent their children marrying." p. XXXVIII.]

[Footnote 215: _Cp._ Jung, "Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology," 156 ff. On the other hand in cases where, as in those we considered above, the parent identifies himself with his children, he is very likely to experience a strong attachment to the marital partners of his children.]