It may indeed from certain points of view appear touching or even admirable, when, for instance, a mother and a son or a father and a daughter have remained strongly and intimately attached to one another long after the son or daughter has reached adolescence or maturity. In what direction, it might be asked, could the child be more appropriately drawn by ties of deep and permanent affection than to one to whom it owes its very existence, to whom it is indebted for the care, nourishment, and protection that were necessary to it in its early years and who is responsible for the first awakening and the first reciprocation of its love? We now know, however, that the maintenance of such a tie when the biological causes that bind child to parent have ceased to act, is liable to be achieved at the cost of some grave failure of development. The "good" son or daughter frequently becomes a bad husband or wife, an inferior individual and an unsatisfactory member of society. The conduct of the child who thus sacrifices the unfolding of his own personality to a primitive affection which should have been outgrown, should indeed arouse pity or contempt rather than admiration, while the corresponding conduct of the parent, who thus hinders the development of the child he loves, can be regarded scarcely otherwise than as ignorantly and pathetically selfish. [Sidenote: The loosening of the filio-parental tie requires a readjustment of the parent's life] In order to avoid such conduct it will be necessary for parents to keep a close watch, not only on the development of their children's emotional life, but on the course and direction of their own affections. Only by the gradual replacement in the parent's mind of that love and interest which centred round the child by a corresponding absorption in some other direction (whether in other children, in the sexual partner or in some totally different matter) can the necessary readjustment of the filio-parental relations be successfully and painlessly accomplished. This is a duty which, difficult as it may sometimes appear, the requirements of the true mental development of their children would seem inevitably to impose on parents. For this reason it is obviously unwise for parents ever to immerse themselves to such an extent in their children and their children's affairs, that these absorb the whole of their emotional and intellectual capacities. If they should do so, it will be additionally difficult for them to pick up the threads of their previous interests and activities when the growth of the children renders such a readjustment necessary[269]. [Sidenote: Displacement of the parent-regarding tendencies] [Sidenote: Complete emancipation from incest tendencies is never achieved]