Articles

Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited

Parenting - The Irrational Vocation

page 2

People derive great happiness, fulfilment and satisfaction from their children. Is not this, in itself, a sufficient explanation? The pleasure principle seems to be at work: people have children because it gives them great pleasure. Children are sources of emotional sustenance. As parents grow old, they become sources of economic support, as well. Unfortunately, these assertions are not sustained by the facts. Increasing mobility breaks families apart at an early stage. Children become ever more dependent on the economic reserves of their parents (during their studies and the formation of a new family). It is not uncommon today for a child to live with and off his parents until the age of 30. Increasing individualism leaves parents to cope with the empty nest syndrome. Communication between parents and children has rarefied in the 20th century.

It is possible to think of children as habit forming (see: "The Habit of Identity"). In this hypothesis, parents – especially mothers – form a habit. Nine months of pregnancy and a host of social reactions condition the parents. They get used to the presence of an "abstract" baby. It is a case of a getting used to a concept. This is not very convincing. Entertaining a notion, a concept, a thought, an idea, a mental image, or a symbol very rarely leads to the formation of a habit. Moreover, the living baby is very different to its pre-natal image. It cries, it soils, it smells, it severely disrupts the lives of its parents. It is much easier to reject it then to transform it to a habit. Moreover, a child is a bad emotional investment. So many things can and do go wrong with it as it grows. So many expectations and dreams are frustrated. The child leaves home and rarely reciprocates. The emotional "returns" on an investment in a child are rarely commensurate with the magnitude of the investment.

This is not to say that people do NOT derive pleasure and fulfilment from their offspring. This is undeniable. Yet, it is neither in the economic nor in the mature emotional arenas. To have children seems to be a purely Narcissistic drive, a part of the pursuit of Narcissistic supply.

For further elaboration, please refer to: "Malignant Self Love – Narcissism Revisited" and the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) sections.

We are all Narcissists, to a greater or lesser degree. A Narcissist is a person who projects a (false) image to the people around him. He then proceeds to define himself by this very image reflected back at him. Thus, he regards people as mere instruments, helpful in his Sisyphean attempt at self-definition. Their attention is crucial because it augments his weak ego and defines its boundaries. The Narcissist feeds off their admiration, adoration and approval and these help him to maintain a grandiose (fantastic and delusional) sense of self. As the personality matures, Narcissism is replaced with the ability to empathize and to love. The energy (libido) initially directed at loving one's (false) self is redirected at more multidimensional, less idealized "targets": others. This edifice of maturity seems to crumble at the sight of one's offspring. The baby evokes in the parent the most primordial drives, a regression to infancy, protective, animalistic instincts, the desire to merge with the newborn and a sense of terror generated by such a desire (a fear of vanishing and of being assimilated). The parent relives his infancy and childhood through the agency of the baby. The newborn provides the parent with endless, unconditional and unbounded Narcissistic supply. This is euphemistically known as love – but it is really a form of symbiotic dependence, at least in the beginning of the relationship. Such narcissistic supply is addictive even to the more balanced, more mature, more psychodynamically stable of parents.

It enhances the parent's self-confidence, self esteem and buttresses his self image. It fast becomes indispensable, especially in the emotionally vulnerable position in which the parent finds himself. This vulnerability is a result of the reawakening and reconstruction of all the conflicts and unsolved complexes that the parent had with his own parents.

If explanation is true, the following should also hold true:

1. The higher the self confidence, the self esteem, the self worth, the clearer and more realistic the self image of the potential parent – the less children he will have (the Principle of the Conservation of the Ego boundaries)

2. The more sources of readily available Narcissistic supply – the less children are needed (the substitutability of Narcissistic sources of supply)

Sure enough, both predictions are validated by reality. The higher the education and the income of adults – the fewer children they tend to have. People with a higher education and with a greater income are more likely to have a more established sense of self worth. Children become counter-productive: not only is their Narcissistic input (supply) unnecessary, they can also hinder further progress.

Having children is not a survival or genetically oriented imperative. Had this been the case, the number of children would have risen together with free income. Yet, exactly the reverse is happening: the more children people can economically afford – the fewer they have. The more educated they are (=the more they know about the world and about themselves), the less they seek to procreate. The more advanced the civilization, the more efforts it invests into preventing the birth of children: contraceptives, family planning, abortions. These all are typical of affluent, well educated societies.

And the more Narcissistic supply can be derived from other sources – the less do people resort to making children and to other procreative activities (such as sex). Freud described the mechanism of sublimation: the sex drive, the Eros (libido), can be "converted", "sublimated" into other activities. All the sublimatory channels and activities are Narcissistic in character: politics, art. They all provide what children do: narcissistic supply. They make children redundant. It is not by coincidence that people famous for their creativity tend to have less children than the average (most of them, none at all). They are Narcissistically self sufficient, they do not need children.

This seems to be the key to our determination to have children:

To experience the unconditional love that we received from our mothers, this intoxicating feeling of being loved without caveats, for what we are, with no limits, reservations, or calculations. This is the most powerful, crystallized source of Narcissistic supply. It nourishes our self-love, self worth and self-confidence. It infuses us with feelings of omnipotence and omniscience. In these, and other respects, it is a return to infancy.

top | continued

home | about me | narcissism defined | faq | narcissism list excerpts
the book | book excerpts | articles | email me