SIDELIGHTS O N PARENT-CHILD ANTAGONISM*

GREGORY ZILBOORG, M.D.

Bloomingdale Hospi~al,White Plains, New York

IT HAS become a truism to say that you must frequently treat

the parent if you want to help the child who has psychological
difficulties. T h e principle is as sound as it is simple, yet it covers a
multitude of complex factors and its application is fraught with
a host of difficulties. One constantly finds oneself facing the dis-
comfort of steering between the devil of practical oversimplifica-
tions and the deep sea of theoretical speculations. T h e present
communication attempts to sketch in concrete clinical terms some
of the characterictic parental factors which affect the problem of
antagonism between parent and child; the word “parental” is
underscored because strange as it may seem, the deeper psychol-
ogy of the parent is not infrequently overlooked. For when we
study the deeper psychology of the child, we center our attention
on the child’s reactions to the parents, taking the latter as invari-
able entities; on the other hand as we study the adult, we find it
necessary to plunge into his infancy and thus again concentrate
on a retrospective reconstruction of infantile patterns; therefore
the deeper structure of parent-child relationship somehow fails to
fall upon the focal point of our attention. This deeper structure
can rarely be well observed in a child guidance clinic, and it seems
therefore quite pertinent that the psychoanalyst come and offer
some observations obtained from adults in the intimacy of a con-
sultation room and away from the nursery or school room. These
adults betray a very complex unconscious attitude towards their
children.
Take, for instance, the father who unconsciously resented his
son’s attachment to the mother; he loved his boy and cherished
only the greatest ambitions for him, but so strong was his uncon-
scious jealousy of the son that his demands for perfection became
excessive. T h e boy complied with the father’s demands; he was
an excellent scholar, first in his class, an extremely studious and
industrious fellow, but one without stamina, without initiative-
a young bookworm without a gleam of sociability. By making the
boy “perfect” the father castrated him, as it were. T h e son, to be
sure, succumbed to the tension of his so-called castration complex,
* Presented a t the 1931 meeting of the American Orthopsychiatric Association.
35
36 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ORTHOPSYCHIATRY

but it would be more correct to say that he succumbed to his

father’s castrative complex; yet this complex appeared in the form
of good will and honest ambition.
The above is an example of the most primitive forms of the
parent’s antagonism which is as old as the human race; the prac-
tical inference which suggests itself is this: powerful, hostile im-
pulses underly quite frequently the benevolence of the parent, and
unless these impulses are checked very early in the life of the
child, one might be totally unable to awaken this child from its
premature passivity and neurotic submissiveness. A number of
fathers seem to treat (unconsciously) most of their sons as com-
petitors; as a matter of fact “son” is frequently equated with
“brother” in the parent’s unconscious, and unless we study their
relationships to their respective siblings, we might be unable to
understand their attitude towards their children. Thus the so-
called family history and particularly that part of it which deals
with parental siblings (uncles and aunts) acquires a t times a par-
amount importance from the standpoint of understanding the
unconscious attitude of the parents towards their own children.
Some fathers whom I have treated analytically were unable to
establish any friendly (unconscious) attitude towards their sons
because their sons took in their unconscious the place of their
younger or older brothers. So strong had been their competition
with those brothers and so violent were their hostile impulses
against them that the sons had to bear the brunt of this hostility.
Thus one patient whose unconscious hatred of his younger brother
had never subsided always treated his own youngster with a great
deal of oblique hostility; he not only punished him frequently but
contrived (unconsciously) to put the boy in the wrong in order to
justify his hostility against him; he seduced him, as it were, into
being bad, and then selfrighteously meted out the “just” punish-
ment. A curious and very difficult situation arose, for the father
could not see wherein he was wrong; objectively the boy was a
“problem boy.” H e actually stole money from his father’s purse;
he actually began to taste his father’s wine a bit too early in life;
he actually tore “maliciously” some important papers belonging
to his father. And this father failed to be aware that it was he who
put money in the boy’s way so that he might steal; that it was he
who left “without thinking” a glass of wine a t the boy’s elbow;
that it was he who gave the boy the papers “to play with” pre-
 PARENT-CHILD ANTAGONISM 37

sumably because he did not need them any more. On the surface
all thesefacts were not seen; they came out in the analysis of the
father.
I recall a mother who identified (unconsciously) her youngest
son with her younger brother; all her hostility against him and
against all men for that matter was thus centered on her youngest
child. The results were as deplorable as those in the case of the
boy cited above. It is quite interesting to note in this connection
that other, even more obscure and potent forces are a t work a t
times. I knew a mother who had never overcome her own Oedipus
attachment to her father; she married an older man, and her
child was to her a living testimony to her unconscious incestuous
attitude towards her father. Such a mother, no matter how lofty
and impeccably honest her conscious desire to cooperate with
those whom she entrusted with the guidance of her neurotic girl,
was yet unable to accomplish her conscious task, because uncon-
sciously she wished to destroy the living sign of incest, she there-
fore wanted nothing but evil for the child. This mother ended by
developing a severe psychoneurotic depression the chief uncon-
scious trend of which was to do away with the child. T h e girl later
suffered from a number of behavior difficulties; their root lay in
the fertile soil of her mother’s unconscious murder impulses. One
mother proceeded to put a number of sharp instruments in the
hands of her youngsters, because “they will have to learn to use
these things some day anyhow.” I n other words one can go on and
enumerate a multitude of difficulties which operate imperceptibly
within the psyche of the father and mother and which are di-
rected against the child. T h e traditional view that parental love
is an immutable instinct thus seems to need substantial qualifica-
tion, for this instinct not infrequently presents but a very small
proportion of the sum total of a parent’s feeling for his or her off-
spring. A curious but by no means rare source of one’s hostility
against one’s own children can be found in the father’s identifica-
tion with his wife; in the case of such feminine (maternal) identi-
fication the child is quite frequently treated with a great deal of
unconscious animosity which is almost reminiscent of that of a
sterile woman watching the offspring of a happy mother.
For purposes of greater clarity one might add that these and
many other determinants of parental hostility against their chil-
dren are not necessarily of a neurotic nature in the clinical sense;
38 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ORTHOPSYCHIATRY

in other words, the parents in whom these hostile or strongly am-

bivalent impulses are charged with a great deal of energy, instead
of presenting a clinical picture of a neurosis, might and do most
frequently appear more or less normal; they might be character-
ized as “high-strung” or “irritable” or “temperamental” or what
not, but they are on the whole more or less adjusted people. As
a matter of fact any maladjustment which they happen to discov-
er in their children a t times surprises them, since according to
their conscious conviction they are rather good, if not exem-
plary, parents. One mother who was consciously “crazy about her
little girl” and who spoiled her to the utmost degree was never
able to assume any firm attitude towards the child, nor was she
able, despite her great affection, to establish any friendly contact
with the daughter; she found herself incapable of being strict with
the child because sudden waves of anxiety would inhibit her from
acting. This mother would frequently dream that the little girl
fell out of the window or that she committed suicide; the woman
would wake up with a pang of anxiety and would remain low in
spirits throughout the day “without knowing why.” Deeper anal-
ysis revealed a rather tense childhood drama. T h e woman was
six years old when a little sister was borne to her mother, and she
never made peace with that unwelcome little newcomer. I t be-
came clear that the patient not only transferred onto her daughter
her childhood animosity against her little sister, but that she was
never able to make peace with her own strivings to motherhood:
she suffered from a deep-seated sense of guilt, for in so far as she
wanted the death of her mother and of her little sister, she her-
self was unable to assume an adult r81e (identify herself with her
mother) without feeling that she did not deserve to have what
she wanted to destroy in others. T h e closely knit and complex net
of emotions which are imperceptibly carried over from childhood
thus acts like a trap to the parents’ normal attitude towards their
children.
There is another determinant which is very potent in the de-
velopment of parental unconscious aggression against offspring.
For a time the child is a source of great joy and unconscious satis-
faction; i t is a little animal living beyond the confines of any moral
or written laws; the whole world serves the helpless baby and per-
mits him the complete gratification of all its infantile impulses.
The parents by way of identification with the baby live out vi-
 PARENT-CHILD ANTAGONISM 39

cariously the living remnants of their own infantilism, but this

can go on only for a time; this golden period when the child is a
fascinating plaything is soon succeeded by a period when the de-
mands of civilized life assert themselves. T h e parents a t this time
begin to assert the voice of their own social conscience and moral
restrictions; the child then gradually becomes a sort of living sym-
bol of what once was permitted to the parents and then became
forbidden; the whole mass of forbidding, restricting, critical im-
pulses which make u p the silent code of civilization is then hurled
upon the child; the stronger the parents’ “conscience,” that is,
the stronger their inhibitions, the greater will be their hostility
against the child’s freedom. T o put it in technical terms: to the
unconscious of the parents the child plays the r81e of the I d ; the
parents follow it vicariously for a time and then hurl upon it with
all the force of their Super Ego; they project onto the child their
own I d and then punish it to gratify the demands of their uncom-
promising Super Ego. One should note, however, that this highly
technical formulation, no matter how correct scientifically, does
not always make for clarity, and that the understanding of the
dynamic factors described above does not depend upon any spe-
cialized language.
As one goes on enumerating the very many and intricate mech-
anisms which determine the parent-child antagonism, one can not
help being impressed with their practical clinical significance; for
these mechanisms are not mere theoretical concepts, they have an
enormous bearing on our clinical work. Take, for instance, the
anxious mother who has a “problem child’’ and who comes to you
with sincerest intentions of seeking and following your advice.
No matter how sound your advice and no matter how intelligent
the mother, her sense of guilt or her hostility towards the child or
both make her actively unwilling to see the child well and ad-
justed. By means of that subtle and evasive set of methods com-
monly called rationalization she will cover up her own inner
conflict and her interference with the child’s psychological wel-
fare, and it might become well nigh impossible for her or even for
us to see clearly the treacherous game of the unconscious forces a t
work. I t would seem therefore that the old truism, “you must
treat the parent if you treat the child,” needs not only greater
emphasis but is also in need of broadening and deepening of its
meaning: to wit, one must needs learn those objective facts and
40 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ORTHOPSYCHIATRY

those phenomena which permit us to reconstruct the unconscious

attitude of the parent to the indivi’dual child, and only then will
it become possible to evaluate the various forces which are a t
work in a given probltm.
We must remember in this connection that there is no general
attitude towards children on the part of a mother or a father; this
attitude varies and fluctuates depending upon the age and order
of the children’s appearance. Thus in a case of a mother of five
children, the oldest son became the object of her intense incestu-
ous attitude which she transferred from her father; the youngest
became the object of overcompensatory hatred which she trans-
ferred onto him from her brother; while the three other children
shared in the distribution of the mother’s conflicts with regard to
her mother, maternal grandmother, father, and brother-all this
depending upon the respective sex of the children. I t was quite
striking how in the course of her analysis the mother betrayed her
seductive attitude towards one, castrative toward the other, pen-
itent towards the third child, etc.
Another mother, who had two little daughters, eight and three
years old respectively, also distributed the various shades of her
inner conflict between them; the older girl suffered for a period
from asthma; this enabled the mother to admit into her conscious-
ness the death wish which she harbored against the child; she
therefore frankly admitted that it would be better if the child had
never been born or had died, for then she would not have to suffer
so much from her ailment. T h e asthmatic attacks gradually de-
creased in number and intensity, and the child all but recovered,
but the mother’s attitude remained unchanged and finally be-
came a menace to the child’s psychological security and efficiency.
In the case of the second girl, however, there was no externaljusti-
fication onto which the mother could anchor her rationalized
death wish; the wish had to be repressed. This was done, but
rather unsuccessfully because the mother developed a suicidal de-
pression; while in the acute phase of the depression “it would have
been better if both little angels were dead or never born,” since
(<
they must have inherited my tendency towards mental illness.”
Thus by means of a pathological rationalization the death wish
was permitted to reappear in consciousness with renewed vigor.
Incidentally this woman was rather happy during her pregnan-
cies. This brings us very closely to an important practical clini-
 PARENT-CHILD ANTAGONISM 41

cal problem. The fact that a woman comciously wants children is

at times highly misleading, for quite frequently the conscious de-
sire covers up just the opposite mental attitude, and still more
frequently it conceals later under the guise of maternal happiness
a very deep disappointment particularly if the child happens to
be a girl instead of a boy. In other words the sex of the child, while
outwardly of no significance, might prove the decisive factor in the
mother’s attitude and in the future psycho-social adjustment of
the child.
As has been said, it would be highly desirable to establish some
definite, concrete, objective, clinical criteria which would permit
us to diagnose the parental unconscious factor in a given problem.
This, I believe, is quite possible, but to accomplish it further study
of the problem will be required. I t is the purpose of this brief com-
munication merely to point out some of the factors involved and
some of the sidelights which impress one looking from within the
psychoanalytical room. I t would be a mistake, however, to think
that the method of study should be based only on the analysis of
the adults. With the data of the latter in mind one learns to ob-
tain a t times quite a clear-cut picture of the parental psycho-
dynamics through the analysis of the adolescent, and then de-
finite light is thrown on the problem of what to do with the par-
ent. Thus, from analysing a boy fetishist, in whom pathological
stealing of certain objects and episodical exhibitionism were com-
bined, a definite impression was gained that the boy’s mother was
not only fixed on her only son as she had been on her father, but
that identifying herself with her son, she gradually began to treat
him as if he were a girl. Ostensibly on the conscious plane this
particular situation appeared ludicrous, but the woman was in-
tensely jealous of the boy when he and father happened to be in
agreement on some, no matter how minor, matter. She first mo-
nopolized the boy’s affection, then tormented him, and gradually
threw him into a feminine submissiveness towards his father and
into a neurotic delinquency. There was no doubt in this case that
without the understanding of the unconscious behaviour and
trend of the mother, the problem could not be solved, for her for-
mal behaviour was on the whole correct; or a t any rate it revealed
little which was tangible.
I should like to say in conclusion not only that the hostile trends
operating in the unconscious of the parents present a universal
42 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ORTHOPSYCHIATRY

phenomenon which deserves to awaken the curiosity of the practi-

cal psychopathologist, but that they are potent, dynamic factors
which we must know in considerable detail if we are to deal with
neurotic maladjustment, delinquency, and other related problems
in children. T h e recent advances of psychoanalysis offer us more
than one methodological tool which would enable us to find many
a pathway leading to the practical solution of a number of intri-
cate problems in which the parental factor invisibly but surely
lies a t the root of the child’s behaviour.
DISCUSSION
DR. SULLIVAN: I t is a great satisfaction to hear Dr. Zilboorg’s paper. H e did
not have time enough to develop some of the implications which I would wish
to stress. I t is easy to say, “Ah, yes, to treat children we must treat the parents;
and then I suppose, we have to treat surviving grandparents.” T h a t is an easy
way of getting around facts and justifying what one is doing. I t is all but im-
possible to treat younger children, and very difficult to treat juveniles, by which
I mean people who are in school. Adolescents are different and it is frequently
necessary-and I may say here this is the first time I have heard an analyst say
so-to do something about the morbidities in the significant adult environment
if the adolescent is to be brought to a condition of mental health. I t seems that
Dr. Zilboorg was prevented from stressing one of his greatest points. I t is not
universally true that parents have the morbidities which lead to many of the
problems that we see in adolescents, and I am sure, in childhood. There are
cultures in which those problems are not represented. Others may perhaps be.
What I am attempting to say is that Dr. Zilboorg has been touching upon things
which are permitted by our culture. The tradition of parenthood is one thing
among them. Traditions, new traditions, the traditions to which we contribute
enter into this. For feminism to become permanent we must have a permissive
culture, and there is such a permissive culture now. Therefore we can be abso-
lutely certain of any prophecy that certain types of childhood difficulties will
increase rapidly because our culture now permits women to assume certain rBles
in general affairs. T h e explanation of this study of childhood problems and
adolescent problems must include not only the significant difficulties of adults
which enter into the situation, but also the cultural and social forces, entities, or
doctrines, whatever you will, which permit these things to appear. T h a t we must
do if we are to get anywhere. Dr. Preston’s paper pointed to the same thing.
Certain parents discover problems in what seem to be average children.

DR. ROSENOW: Dr. Zilboorg, if I understood correctly, told us that hatred of

the child by the parent is well nigh universal, and for the purpose of this dis-
cussion I will take that for granted. Then, wouldn’t it be true, in therapy, if it
is universal, that we are compelled to take it for granted as a difficulty which we
have to expect and circumvent somehow? Clearly if it is universal we can change
it only in few cases.
 PARENT-CHILD ANTAGONISM 43

DR.ZILBOORC (closing discussion): I shall start by answering the last question

first. Universality does not mean homogeneity. It is universal that we are all
neurotic but we do not all belong in a hospital. I t is also true that hatreds are
managed in various ways. We are all very aggressive, and one satisfies his
aggressiveness by answering questions, while another bursts forth and hits
someone in the nose. I t is a universal phenomenon that the suspicions and hatred
of children have many aspects, and it is a question of how a parent manages this
hatred. If the parent has not found the proper treatment and busts the psychic
nose of the youngster, then it is dangerous. As to the remarks made by Dr.
Sullivan I can only say one thing. I heartily endorse them and should like to
elaborate on them, but shall not. Nothing is more important than the so-called
sociological aspects in their broader sense. Extremely little has been done,
particularly in this country where the word sociology has been understood up to
now in a much narrower sense. At the beginning of the twentieth century a
number of psychiatrists, psychologists, and criminologists made serious attempts
to correlate the individual psyche as it appears in culture and culture as it in-
fluences the individual psyche. The problem of permissive culture is one which I
believe no one will ever solve. In this I agree with Dr. Rosenow that it is a
universal phenomenon. Over some period of time we will have to evolve some
sort of technique.