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Some children display an exaggerated attachment to an article of clothing (usually not their own), or to a piece of bedding such as a pillow or blanket, or to some other inanimate object not particularly suitable as a child's plaything. The child must possess and use this article in certain situations, especially before going to sleep or when alone or in a strange environment. Even the presence of mother will not comfort some of these children unless this fetish is available when they need it. It is startling and puzzling to see an inanimate and seemingly valueless object preferred by the child to his mother. Mothers are usually embarrassed by this behavior and try to conceal it from outsiders and to minimize the degree of the child's attachment to the fetish.
In 1927, Freidjung (7), a psychoanalytically oriented Viennese pediatrician, published a short but very interesting observation of such fetishistic behavior in a sixteen-month-old boy. He had chanced to find the mother's used stocking or lingerie in the child's bed and was given significant information about the child's behavior, not by the mother, but by the grandmother and the maid.
In 1930, Lorand (13) reported on a four-year-old boy with shoe fetishism. Corroborating Freud's concept of the fetish as representing the 'illusory' phallus of the mother, Lorand gave some description of the child's environment. His parents were exhibitionistic and the boy had unusually strong scoptophilia. He had slept with his mother until the age of three and still shared her bedroom and frequently her bed. He liked to climb all over her body, under her and other women's skirts, and often while sitting on his mother's lap, even in the presence