The Birth of a Family:—Some Early Developments in Parent-Child Interaction1

DURING THE LAST TWO DECADES—especially with the impetus of Erikson's conceptions of the life cycle—there has been a growing awareness in the psychoanalytic and developmental literature of parenthood as a developmental phase. Our understanding of the development of parental attitudes and tasks does not match in its refinement the careful stage-distinctions we have made for the child's development. In part this is understandable since parenthood usually occurs in adult life when the rate of change in personality has slowed down and has become relatively stable and, in varying degree, resistant to modification. However, on more detailed observations of parent-child interactions it becomes apparent that there are frequent and important fluctuations of parental attitudes that occur in interaction with the child's rapid development. The particular parental task at a given stage of the child's development is defined in part by the particular social and family group, in part by the idiosyncratic personal character of the parents—including their expectations, idealizations and sensitivities—and in part by the actual developmental experiences of the child which are sometimes most operationally described in terms of the child's behavioral impact on parental behavior.

Historically, psychoanalysis at first emphasized the unfolding of instinctual drive organization as the prime determinant of developmental