Yesterday evening I was lying stomach-down on the floor in the den reading about Erikson’s 8 Stages of human development. As two year-old Seventy-Six ran, jumped on my back, put his arms around my neck and swung around so that his face was next mine as he fell over onto the book screaming gibberish noises in my ear and laughing, I was reading the following aloud to him:
“As children seem so much more in control of themselves and reach peaks of willfulness, societies, through parents, decide it is time to teach them the right ways to behave. As Freud observed, parents do not permit their children to enjoy their anality in any way they please; instead, they train them to behave in the socially proper way.” (Crain, 2005, p. 283)
Caution-Lady, in the room at the time, and I cracked up at Freud’s observation. It was a funny family moment with our own little appropriately staged wild-boy in the starring role.
Christov_Tenn 