The psycho-analytic study of the family

by J. C. Flugel

If, on the economic side, the duty of weaning children especially as regards the psychological aspect of this tie from their primitive dependence on the family is thus not yet always fully recognised, the recognition of the corresponding duties on the psychological side is still less complete. Parents are often unwilling to abandon the jurisdiction and control which they have been accustomed to exercise over their children and which may have become very pleasant to them, both as providing an agreeable source of interest and as ministering to their sense of power. Often too in the beginning it may be easier for them to help their children than to let the latter learn to help themselves. Not infrequently also they are directly or indirectly encouraged in this course by the children themselves, who, out of laziness or failure in initiative, prefer that their lives should be regulated by their parents rather than that they should make the effort and take on the responsibility of regulating it themselves. Sometimes, moreover, parents are unwilling to relinquish the management of their childrens' lives for fear of the disasters that may overtake these latter through ignorance and inexperience; or again because of an exaggerated tenderness which makes them loth to abandon those manifestations of affection which parental assistance may imply. It must be understood however that none of these motives—powerful though some of them may be—provide an adequate excuse for the omission to carry out the weaning process, which, as we have seen, is of such vast importance for the development of the full capacities of the individual. It can scarcely be too frequently emphasised that parents who bring their children up without regard to the necessity of this emancipation are guilty of a very serious neglect of their childrens' welfare[270].

The danger is perhaps greatest in the case of strong The danger is greatest in the case of parents of strong personality willed, self-assertive and energetic parents, who in any case, as we have seen, are likely to exert a powerful influence over their children, and who, by an undue insistence on the authority which they possess, may easily cripple all initiative on the part of these latter. In parents who themselves are weak and averse from serious effort there is though there may be difficulties also in the case of weak parents naturally less likelihood of this occurring: in such cases the danger lies more frequently in the direction of their devoting too little time, trouble or guidance to their children: or else in their adoption of a changeable and inconsistent attitude—petting, indulging, spoiling and bribing one minute, bullying, nagging and punishing the next; being now overstrict, now easy-going.

Here, as in the case of the love-weaning, it is difficult or Necessity of parental readjustment impossible for parents to carry out satisfactorily the steps necessary for the gradual emancipation of their children, except in so far as they are able to make a corresponding readjustment of their own emotions and tendencies. New interests and occupations must gradually take the place of those that formerly centred round the children; otherwise there is likely to arise a blank in the affective life, which may lead to much unhappiness and even to neurosis.

In considering the question of the emancipation of children Too prolonged parental jurisdiction is a cause of filio-parental hatred in later life from the authority and influence of their parents, it is well to bear in mind also that it is the exercise of this authority and influence which affords the principal occasion for the development or continuance of the hatred of children towards their parents in adolescent or adult life. The arousal of some hatred in the early years of childhood may indeed be inevitable. Its continuance into later life, with all the misery that this is apt to entail, may probably in nearly every case be avoided, provided that the stage of infantile jealousy has been successfully surmounted and that the child is endowed with something approaching the usual degree of amenability and sympathy with the point of view and susceptibilities of others; the rest is very largely a matter of the careful relaxation of parental authority and of the granting of reasonable and ever increasing amounts of liberty and of opportunity for self-guidance and self-control.

What we have here said as regards the necessity for the The dependence of children upon parent-substitutes must also be gradually reduced gradual relaxation of parental control applies of course not only to the parents themselves but to their substitutes—guardians, nurses, teachers and others who are placed in similar positions of trust and authority. There is indeed reason to believe that in these quarters the necessity of emancipation is often more in need of emphasis than among actual parents. Particularly is this the case with regard to certain institutions, where children would seem to be brought up with but little freedom or opportunity to learn the nature and conditions of autonomy or to adapt themselves to the varied circumstances of the outer world. In many of our schools also there is to some extent a lack of proper understanding or application of the principles which demand the gradual relaxation of parental and quasi-parental authority. Though here, as a rule, the evil is in practice less serious than it would at first appear to be; the granting of autonomy and the cultivation of responsibility and self-control in some directions usually compensating in large measure for the petty and foolish restrictions to which adolescent boys and girls, or even fully grown young men and women, are subjected in some of our larger and better known educational establishments.

These last considerations point the way to certain wider The ethics of the family must however be brought into connection with wider social questions issues that are connected with the ethics of the family—issues with which we have already been brought face to face in Chapters XIII and XIV, and which we need therefore only refer to here by way of recapitulation. We have seen in these chapters that there exists a correlation between certain aspects or stages of development of the family on the one hand and certain forms of social or ethical institutions or organizations—particularly in the sphere of education, politics and religion—upon the other. Inasmuch as the attitude of the individual towards his teacher, his social or political superior, or his God, is to a very considerable extent derived from, and dependent on, that of the child towards his parent (the former attitude being a displacement of the latter), it is obvious that moral considerations and decisions with regard to the relationship of parent and child cannot altogether be divorced from the wider questions involved in the relations of the individual to his religious, social, and educational environment.

Thus it would be, in the main, a foolish and useless proceeding to urge, as we have done, the desirability of a Our ethical conclusions in the two cases must harmonise with one another gradual emancipation of the growing child from the controlling and protecting influences of the parents, unless we are at the same time willing to permit a corresponding growth of autonomy in school and college. Again, if we were right in assuming a connection, on the one hand between a highly developed patria potestas and a relatively stable and unprogressive political condition, and on the other between the relaxation of parental authority and a state of rapid political development and loosening of governmental authority, then it would (in the absence of any counteracting influence) be absurd to demand the complete emancipation of the individual from his family, if at the same time we desired to uphold autocracy in government or to increase the stability of political and social forms. Nor, once more, would the encouragement of children to become independent of their fathers be logically compatible with the maintenance of a religion of the Judaic type, in which the severe and all-powerful Father-God is but a displacement of an earthly father whose stem authority is unquestioned within the bounds of his own family. It must be realised that our attitude in the one case must be brought into harmony with our views in the other. Our ultimate conclusions as to what is desirable within the family must be arrived at only after due consideration of their wider outside bearings; and again, our opinions on these wider issues may profitably be reviewed in the light of the knowledge that is gained by a biological and psychological study of the family.

In the present pages we have followed in the main the The extent of this harmony latter course. Nevertheless it would appear that on the whole the conclusions we have arrived at by this method are not in any way seriously incompatible with the general tendencies of contemporary thought. While recognising the necessity and desirability of the family influences in early life, we have for the most part demanded emancipation of the individual from any such growth and retention of these influences as would be liable to hamper or delay his personal development. This is well in harmony with the tendencies which are manifested nowadays towards freedom in education, with the analogous tendencies aiming at the overthrow of autocracy and the establishment of democracy in politics and with the growing toleration and increasing abandonment of the Judaic attitude in religion.

In education there would seem to be almost complete in education agreement between the implications of our own conclusions and all the more modern and progressive tendencies in discipline and teaching; it is only with the antiquated remains of systems that are now universally condemned by all reformers that there remain any serious elements of conflict.