Children and their link to Parental Ego

Recently I was analyzing the development of ego in children and how much contribution parents have in this process. I have not found the answer yet but in this process I realized how parental ego gets fuelled heavily by having children.

By the time a person reaches his adult age, enters married life, he has achieved a certain social and financial status. In this process he has also got mired in the complexities of life, the shrewd calculations to stay ahead in the race, and the constant fuelling of the ego to excel.
At this point, the desire to have a child would have these initial expectations:

1) A desire to return to innocence.. remember again how liberating free, selfless flow of thought and action can be.

2) Stay in touch with the creativity and youth of childhood.

3) Be instrumental in another being's existence and survival, thereby being selfless, giving preference to object libido (love towards the outside, away from self) over ego libido (love towards inside, towards self)

4) However, if the parent has faced a few significant failures in his life, there is a subconscious expectation from the yet-to-be-born child to succeed in those areas that the parent failed in. This could be the only appearance of pre-parental ego.

But as the infant is born, here are the ways these expectations take a different turn:

1) Association of the parent's physical and behavioral features with the child's - directly linking the parent's ego with the child's being (a reason that prevents adoption from being popular)

2) Comparision of the child with the peer age group, constantly throughout the growth phase. This again fuels the ego of the child as well as the parent, to be better than others.

3) Inhibition of the child's free expression and interests, to conform with the societal norms of success.

4) An expectation of a emotional/financial 'return' from the child when he grows up. In Indian society this return mainfests in gestures like taking the first salary to the parents, taking care of the parents when they are old, etc.


This is just a summary of the two lines of thought that may be working subconsciously in a parent's mind, before he has the child and after. This summary is not judgmental but purely analytical.

1 comment:

Akshata said...

I liked your article. Your thoughts are rational and you articulate how we fall into the trap of parental ego , seeing our children just as extensions of ourselves. Good thoughts, keep posting more !