character and that of a naughty child is strikingly evident. A
compulsion neurosis, on the other hand, corresponds to a super-morality,
imposed upon the primary character that is again asserting itself, as an
increased check.
Many persons, then, who love their brothers and sisters, and who would
feel bereaved by their decease, have evil wishes towards them from
earlier times in their unconscious wishes, which are capable of being
realised in the dream. It is particularly interesting to observe little
children up to three years old in their attitude towards their brothers
and sisters. So far the child has been the only one; he is now informed
that the stork has brought a new child. The younger surveys the arrival,
and then expresses his opinion decidedly: “The stork had better take it
back again.”[BY]
I subscribe in all seriousness to the opinion that the child knows
enough to calculate the disadvantage it has to expect on account of the
new-comer. I know in the case of a lady of my acquaintance who agrees
very well with a sister four years younger than herself, that she
responded to the news of her younger sister’s arrival with the following
words: “But I shan’t give her my red cap, anyway.” If the child comes to
this realisation only at a later time, its enmity will be aroused at
that point. I know of a case where a girl, not yet three years old,
tried to strangle a suckling in the cradle, because its continued
presence, she suspected, boded her no good. Children are capable of envy
at this time of life in all its intensity and distinctness. Again,
perhaps, the little brother or sister has really soon disappeared; the
child has again drawn the entire affection of the household to itself,
and then a new child is sent by the stork; is it then unnatural for the
favourite to wish that the new competitor may have the same fate as the
earlier one, in order that he may be treated as well as he was before
during the interval? Of course this attitude of the child towards the
younger infant is under normal circumstances a simple function of the
difference of age. After a certain time the maternal instincts of the
girl will be excited towards the helpless new-born child.
Feelings of enmity towards brothers and sisters must occur far more
frequently during the age of childhood than is noted by the dull
observation of adults.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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