The-Conquest-of-Happiness-by-Bertrand-Russell

he has to venture forth into the streets. Such a man,
ff he had received more affection, would have
feared the real world less, and would not have had
to invent an ideal world to take its place in his
beliefs.
By no means all affection, however, has this effect
in encouraging adventurousness. The affection
given must be itself robust rather than timid,
desiring excellence even more than safety on the
part of its object, though of course by no means
indifferent to safety. The timid mother or nurse,
who is perpetually warning children against
disasters that may occur, who thinks that every dog
will bite and that every cow is a bull, may produce
in them a timidity equal to her-own, and may cause
them to feel that they are never safe except in her
immediate neighbourhood. To the unduly
possessive mother this feeling on the part of a
child may be agreeable: she may desire his
dependence upon herself more than his capacity to
cope with the world. In that case her child is
probably worse off in the long run than he would