=In Love with His Family.= Presently Nature pries the child loose from love of himself and directs part of his interests to people outside himself. Before he is a year old, part of his love is turned to others. In this stage it is natural that at first his affection should center on those who make up his home circle,--his parents and other members of the household. Even in this early choice we see a foreshadowing of his future need. The normal little boy is especially fond of his mother, and the normal little girl of her father. Not all the love goes to the parent of the opposite sex, but if the child be normal, a noticeably larger part finds its way in that direction. Observing parents can often see unmistakable signs of jealousy: toward the parent of the same sex, or the brother or sister of the same sex. The little boy who sleeps with his mother while his father is away, or who on these occasions gets all the attention and all the petting he craves, is naturally eager to perpetuate this state of affairs. Many a small boy has been heard to say that he wished his father would go away and stay all the time,--to the horror of the parents who do not understand. All this is natural enough, but it is not to be encouraged. The pattern of the father or the mother must not be stamped too deep in the impressionable child-mind. Too little love and sympathy are bad, leading to repression and a morbid turning in of the love-force; but too much petting, too many caresses are just as bad. Sentimental self-indulgence on the part of the parents has been repeatedly proved to be the cause of many a later illness for the child. As the right kind of family love and comradeship, the kind that leads to freedom and self-dependence, is among the highest forces in life, so the wrong kind is among the worst. Parents and their substitutes--nurses, sisters, and brothers--are but temporary stopping-places for the growing love, stepping-stones to later attachments which are biologically more necessary. The small boy who lets himself be coddled and petted too long by his adoring relatives, who does not shake off their caresses and run away to the other boys, is doomed to failure, and, as we shall later see, probably to illness.[12] [Footnote 12: One of the best discussions of this theme is found in the chapter "The Only or Favorite Child," by A.A. Brill, in _Psychoanalysis_.]