The advent of cloning, surrogate motherhood, and the
donation of gametes and sperm have shaken the traditional biological definition
of parenthood to its foundations. The social roles of parents have similarly
been recast by the decline of the nuclear family and the surge of alternative
household formats.
Why do people become parents in the first place?
Raising children comprises equal measures of satisfaction
and frustration. Parents often employ a psychological defense mechanism - known
as "cognitive dissonance" - to suppress the negative aspects of
parenting and to deny the unpalatable fact that raising children is time
consuming, exhausting, and strains otherwise pleasurable and tranquil
relationships to their limits.
Not to mention the fact that the gestational mother
experiences “considerable discomfort, effort, and risk in the course of
pregnancy and childbirth” (Narayan, U., and J.J. Bartkowiak (1999) Having and
Raising Children: Unconventional Families, Hard Choices, and the Social Good
University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, Quoted in the
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
Parenting is possibly an irrational vocation, but humanity
keeps breeding and procreating. It may well be the call of nature. All living
species reproduce and most of them parent. Is maternity (and paternity) proof
that, beneath the ephemeral veneer of civilization, we are still merely a kind
of beast, subject to the impulses and hard-wired behavior that permeate the
rest of the animal kingdom?
In his seminal tome, "The Selfish Gene", Richard
Dawkins suggested that we copulate in order to preserve our genetic material by
embedding it in the future gene pool. Survival itself - whether in the form of
DNA, or, on a higher-level, as a species - determines our parenting instinct.
Breeding and nurturing the young are mere safe conduct mechanisms, handing the
precious cargo of genetics down generations of "organic containers".
Yet, surely, to ignore the epistemological and emotional
realities of parenthood is misleadingly reductionistic. Moreover, Dawkins
commits the scientific faux-pas of teleology. Nature has no purpose "in
mind", mainly because it has no mind. Things simply are, period. That
genes end up being forwarded in time does not entail that Nature (or, for that
matter, "God") planned it this way. Arguments from design have long -
and convincingly - been refuted by countless philosophers.
Still, human beings do act intentionally. Back to square
one: why bring children to the world and burden ourselves with decades of
commitment to perfect strangers?
First hypothesis: offspring allow us to "delay"
death. Our progeny are the medium through which our genetic material is
propagated and immortalized. Additionally, by remembering us, our children
"keep us alive" after physical death.
These, of course, are self-delusional, self-serving,
illusions.
Our genetic material gets diluted with time. While it
constitutes 50% of the first generation - it amounts to a measly 6% three
generations later. If the everlastingness of one's unadulterated DNA was the
paramount concern – incest would have been the norm.
As for one's enduring memory - well, do you recall or can
you name your maternal or paternal great great grandfather? Of course you
can't. So much for that. Intellectual feats or architectural monuments are far
more potent mementos.
Still, we have been so well-indoctrinated that this
misconception - that children equal immortality - yields a baby boom in each
post war period. Having been existentially threatened, people multiply in the
vain belief that they thus best protect their genetic heritage and their
memory.
Let's study another explanation.
The utilitarian view is that one's offspring are an asset -
kind of pension plan and insurance policy rolled into one. Children are still
treated as a yielding property in many parts of the world. They plough fields
and do menial jobs very effectively. People "hedge their bets" by
bringing multiple copies of themselves to the world. Indeed, as infant
mortality plunges - in the better-educated, higher income parts of the world -
so does fecundity.
In the Western world, though, children have long ceased to
be a profitable proposition. At present, they are more of an economic drag and
a liability. Many continue to live with their parents into their thirties and
consume the family's savings in college tuition, sumptuous weddings, expensive
divorces, and parasitic habits. Alternatively, increasing mobility breaks
families apart at an early stage. Either way, children are not longer the
founts of emotional sustenance and monetary support they allegedly used to be.
How about this one then:
Procreation serves to preserve the cohesiveness of the
family nucleus. It further bonds father to mother and strengthens the ties
between siblings. Or is it the other way around and a cohesive and warm family
is conductive to reproduction?
Both statements, alas, are false.
Stable and functional families sport far fewer children than
abnormal or dysfunctional ones. Between one third and one half of all children
are born in single parent or in other non-traditional, non-nuclear - typically
poor and under-educated - households. In such families children are mostly born
unwanted and unwelcome - the sad outcomes of accidents and mishaps, wrong
fertility planning, lust gone awry and misguided turns of events.
The more sexually active people are and the less safe their
desirous exploits – the more they are likely to end up with a bundle of joy
(the American saccharine expression for a newborn). Many children are the
results of sexual ignorance, bad timing, and a vigorous and undisciplined
sexual drive among teenagers, the poor, and the less educated.
Still, there is no denying that most people want their kids
and love them. They are attached to them and experience grief and bereavement
when they die, depart, or are sick. Most parents find parenthood emotionally
fulfilling, happiness-inducing, and highly satisfying. This pertains even to
unplanned and initially unwanted new arrivals.
Could this be the missing link? Do fatherhood and motherhood
revolve around self-gratification? Does it all boil down to the pleasure
principle?
Childrearing may, indeed, be habit forming. Nine months of
pregnancy and a host of social positive reinforcements and expectations
condition the parents to do the job. Still, a living tot is nothing like the abstract
concept. Babies cry, soil themselves and their environment, stink, and severely
disrupt the lives of their parents. There is nothing too enticing here.
One's spawns are a risky venture. So many things can and go
wrong. So few expectations, wishes, and
dreams are realized. So much pain is inflicted on the parents. And then the
child runs off and his procreators are left to face the "empty nest".
The emotional "returns" on a child are rarely commensurate with the
magnitude of the investment.
If you eliminate the impossible, what is left - however
improbable - must be the truth. People multiply because it provides them with
narcissistic supply.
A Narcissist is a person who projects a (false) image unto
others and uses the interest this generates to regulate a labile and grandiose
sense of self-worth. The reactions garnered by the narcissist - attention,
unconditional acceptance, adulation, admiration, affirmation - are collectively
known as "narcissistic supply". The narcissist objectifies people and
treats them as mere instruments of gratification.
Infants go through a phase of unbridled fantasy, tyrannical
behavior, and perceived omnipotence. An adult narcissist, in other words, is
still stuck in his "terrible twos" and is possessed with the
emotional maturity of a toddler. To some degree, we are all narcissists. Yet,
as we grow, we learn to empathize and to love ourselves and others.
This edifice of maturity is severely tested by newfound
parenthood.
Babies evoke in the parent the most primordial drives,
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). Neonates engender in their parents an emotional regression.
The parents find themselves revisiting their own childhood
even as they are caring for the newborn. The crumbling of decades and layers of
personal growth is accompanied by a resurgence of the aforementioned early
infancy narcissistic defenses. Parents - especially new ones - are gradually
transformed into narcissists by this encounter and find in their children the
perfect sources of narcissistic supply, euphemistically known as love. Really
it is a form of symbiotic codependence of both parties.
Even the most balanced, most mature, most psychodynamically
stable of parents finds such a flood of narcissistic supply irresistible and
addictive. It enhances his or her self-confidence, buttresses self esteem,
regulates the sense of self-worth, and projects a complimentary image of the
parent to himself or herself.
It fast becomes indispensable, especially in the emotionally
vulnerable position in which the parent finds herself, with the reawakening and
repetition of all the unresolved conflicts that she had with her own parents.
If this theory is true, if breeding is merely about securing
prime quality narcissistic supply, then the higher the self confidence, the
self esteem, the self worth of the parent, the clearer and more realistic his
self image, and the more abundant his other sources of narcissistic supply -
the fewer children he will have. These predictions are borne out by reality.
The higher the education and the income of adults – and,
consequently, the firmer their sense of self worth - the fewer children they
have. Children are perceived as counter-productive: not only is their output
(narcissistic supply) redundant, they hinder the parent's professional and
pecuniary progress.
The more children people can economically afford – the fewer
they have. This gives the lie to the Selfish Gene hypothesis. 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 in preventing the birth of children. Contraceptives, family planning,
and abortions are typical of affluent, well informed societies.
The more plentiful the narcissistic supply afforded by other
sources – the lesser the emphasis on breeding. Freud described the mechanism of
sublimation: the sex drive, the Eros (libido), can be "converted",
"sublimated" into other activities. All the sublimatory channels -
politics and art, for instance - are narcissistic and yield narcissistic
supply. They render children superfluous. Creative people have fewer children
than the average or none at all. This is because they are narcissistically
self-sufficient.
The key to our determination to have children is our wish to
experience the same unconditional love that we received from our mothers, this intoxicating
feeling of being adored without caveats, for what we are, with no limits,
reservations, or calculations. This is the most powerful, crystallized form 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, parenthood is a return to infancy.
Appendix
Question:
Is there a "typical" relationship between the
narcissist and his family?
Answer:
We are all members of a few families in our lifetime: the
one that we are born to and the one(s) that we create. We all transfer hurts,
attitudes, fears, hopes and desires – a whole emotional baggage – from the
former to the latter. The narcissist is no exception.
The narcissist has a dichotomous view of humanity: humans
are either Sources of Narcissistic Supply (and, then, idealized and
over-valued) or do not fulfill this function (and, therefore, are valueless,
devalued). The narcissist gets all the love that he needs from himself. From
the outside he needs approval, affirmation, admiration, adoration, and attention
– in other words, externalized Ego boundary functions.
He does not require – nor does he seek – his parents' or his
siblings' love, or to be loved by his children. He casts them as the audience
in the theatre of his inflated grandiosity. He wishes to impress them, shock
them, threaten them, infuse them with awe, inspire them, attract their
attention, subjugate them, or manipulate them.
He emulates and simulates an entire range of emotions and
employs every means to achieve these effects. He lies (narcissists are
pathological liars – their very self is a false one). He acts the pitiful, or, it’s
opposite, the resilient and reliable. He stuns and shines with outstanding intellectual
or physical capacities and achievements, or behavior patterns appreciated by
the members of the family. When confronted with (younger) siblings or with his
own children, the narcissist is likely to go through three phases:
At first, he perceives his offspring or siblings as a threat
to his Narcissistic Supply, such as the attention of his spouse, or mother, as
the case may be. They intrude on his turf and invade the Pathological
Narcissistic Space. The narcissist does his best to belittle them, hurt (even
physically) and humiliate them and then, when these reactions prove ineffective
or counter-productive, he retreats into an imaginary world of omnipotence. A
period of emotional absence and detachment ensues.
His aggression having failed to elicit Narcissistic Supply,
the narcissist proceeds to indulge himself in daydreaming, delusions of
grandeur, planning of future coups, nostalgia and hurt (the Lost Paradise
Syndrome). The narcissist reacts this way to the birth of his children or to
the introduction of new foci of attention to the family cell (even to a new
pet!).
Whoever the narcissist perceives to be in competition for
scarce Narcissistic Supply is relegated to the role of the enemy. Where the
uninhibited expression of the aggression and hostility aroused by this
predicament is illegitimate or impossible – the narcissist prefers to stay
away. Rather than attack his offspring or siblings, he sometimes immediately
disconnects, detaches himself emotionally, becomes cold and uninterested, or directs
transformed anger at his mate or at his parents (the more
"legitimate" targets).
Other narcissists see the opportunity in the
"mishap". They seek to manipulate their parents (or their mate) by
"taking over" the newcomer. Such narcissists monopolize their
siblings or their newborn children. This way, indirectly, they benefit from the
attention directed at the infants. The sibling or offspring become vicarious
sources of Narcissistic Supply and proxies for the narcissist.
An example: by being closely identified with his offspring,
a narcissistic father secures the grateful admiration of the mother ("What
an outstanding father/brother he is"). He also assumes part of or all the
credit for baby's/sibling's achievements. This is a process of annexation and assimilation
of the other, a strategy that the narcissist makes use of in most of his
relationships.
As siblings or progeny grow older, the narcissist begins to
see their potential to be edifying, reliable and satisfactory Sources of
Narcissistic Supply. His attitude, then, is completely transformed. The former
threats have now become promising potentials. He cultivates those whom he
trusts to be the most rewarding. He encourages them to idolize him, to adore
him, to be awed by him, to admire his deeds and capabilities, to learn to
blindly trust and obey him, in short to surrender to his charisma and to become
submerged in his follies-de-grandeur.
It is at this stage that the risk of child abuse - up to and
including outright incest - is heightened. The narcissist is auto-erotic. He is
the preferred object of his own sexual attraction. His siblings and his
children share his genetic material. Molesting or having intercourse with them
is as close as the narcissist gets to having sex with himself.
Moreover, the narcissist perceives sex in terms of
annexation. The partner is "assimilated" and becomes an extension of
the narcissist, a fully controlled and manipulated object. Sex, to the
narcissist, is the ultimate act of depersonalization and objectification of the
other. He actually masturbates with other people's bodies.
Minors pose little danger of criticizing the narcissist or
confronting him. They are perfect, malleable and abundant sources of
Narcissistic Supply. The narcissist derives gratification from having coital
relations with adulating, physically and mentally inferior, inexperienced and
dependent "bodies".
These roles – allocated to them explicitly and demandingly
or implicitly and perniciously by the narcissist – are best fulfilled by ones
whose mind is not yet fully formed and independent. The older the siblings or
offspring, the more they become critical, even judgmental, of the narcissist.
They are better able to put into context and perspective his actions, to
question his motives, to anticipate his moves.
As they mature, they often refuse to continue to play the
mindless pawns in his chess game. They hold grudges against him for what he has
done to them in the past, when they were less capable of resistance. They can
gauge his true stature, talents and achievements – which, usually, lag far
behind the claims that he makes.
This brings the narcissist a full cycle back to the first
phase. Again, he perceives his siblings or sons/daughters as threats. He
quickly becomes disillusioned and devaluing. He loses all interest, becomes
emotionally remote, absent and cold, rejects any effort to communicate with
him, citing life pressures and the preciousness and scarceness of his time.
He feels burdened, cornered, besieged, suffocated, and
claustrophobic. He wants to get away, to abandon his commitments to people who
have become totally useless (or even damaging) to him. He does not understand
why he has to support them or to suffer their company and he believes himself
to have been deliberately and ruthlessly trapped.
He rebels either passively-aggressively (by refusing to act
or by intentionally sabotaging the relationships) or actively (by being overly
critical, aggressive, unpleasant, verbally and psychologically abusive and so
on). Slowly – to justify his acts to himself – he gets immersed in conspiracy
theories with clear paranoid hues.
To his mind, the members of the family conspire against him,
seek to belittle or humiliate or subordinate him, do not understand him, or
stymie his growth. The narcissist usually finally gets what he wants and the
family that he has created disintegrates to his great sorrow (due to the loss
of the Narcissistic Space) – but also to his great relief and surprise (how
could they have let go someone as unique as he?).
This is the cycle: the narcissist feels threatened by
arrival of new family members – he tries to assimilate or annex of siblings or
offspring – he obtains Narcissistic Supply from them – he overvalues and
idealizes these newfound sources – as sources grow older and independent, they
adopt anti narcissistic behaviors – the narcissist devalues them – the
narcissist feels stifled and trapped – the narcissist becomes paranoid – the
narcissist rebels and the family disintegrates.
This cycle characterizes not only the family life of the
narcissist. It is to be found in other realms of his life (his career, for
instance). At work, the narcissist, initially, feels threatened (no one knows
him, he is a nobody). Then, he develops a circle of admirers, cronies and friends
which he "nurtures and cultivates" in order to obtain Narcissistic
Supply from them. He overvalues them (to him, they are the brightest, the most
loyal, with the biggest chances to climb the corporate ladder and other
superlatives).
But following some anti-narcissistic behaviors on their part
(a critical remark, a disagreement, a refusal, however polite) – the narcissist
devalues all these previously idealized individuals. Now that they have dared
oppose him - they are judged by him to be stupid, cowardly, lacking in
ambition, skills and talents, common (the worst expletive in the narcissist's
vocabulary), with an unspectacular career ahead of them.
The narcissist feels that he is misallocating his scarce and
invaluable resources (for instance, his time). He feels besieged and
suffocated. He rebels and erupts in a series of self-defeating and
self-destructive behaviors, which lead to the disintegration of his life.
Doomed to build and ruin, attach and detach, appreciate and
depreciate, the narcissist is predictable in his "death wish". What
sets him apart from other suicidal types is that his wish is granted to him in
small, tormenting doses throughout his anguished life.
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