The Drama of the Gifted Child (The Search for the True Self)

een caught at night outside the locked door of his parents'
bedroom and laughed at. Now in the analytic session, is the
first time that he consciously experiences the feelings of
humiliation and mortification that were then aroused.
The Oedipal suffering that was not lived out can be got
rid of by delegating it to one's own children—in much the
same way as in the ice cream scene I have just described:
"You see, we are big, we may do as we like, but for you it
is 'too cold.' You may only enjoy yourself as we do when
you get to be big enough." So, in the Oedipal area, too, it
is not the instinctual frustration that is humiliating for the
child, but the contempt shown for his instinctual wishes. It
may well be that the narcissistic component of Oedipal suffering
is commonly accentuated when the parents demonstrate
their "grown-upness" to revenge themselves unconsciously
on their child for their own earlier humiliation. In
the child's eyes they encounter their own humiliating past,
and they must ward it off with the power they now have
achieved.
In many societies, little girls suffer additional discrimination
because they are girls. Since women, however, have
control of the new-born and the infants, these erstwhile
little girls can pass on to their children at the most tender
age the contempt from which they once had suffered.
Later, the adult man will idealize his mother, since every
human being needs the feeling that he was really loved; but
he will despise other women, upon whom he thus revenges
himself in place of his mother. And these humiliated adult
women, in turn, if they have no other means of ridding
themselves of their burden, will revenge themselves
upon their own children. This indeed can be done secretly
and without fear of reprisals, for the child has no way
of telling anyone, except perhaps in the form of a perver-
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