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Many children become interested in their origin at an early age. Freud1 has pointed out that when a child learns a baby grows in the body of the mother he sometimes attributes its origin to food. As the mouth is the only passage through which he takes things into his body, it is natural for him to assume that the mother eats something which then grows within her. In such cases he may think of birth as taking place through the navel or anus, or between the breasts. The child may not know that only women bear children, and it is when he learns this that his curiosity regarding the rǒle of the father arises.
Jung2 traced the development of a four year old girl's interest in the origin of children, pointing out that in her attempt to solve the problem of how children come into the mother she at first related the origin of children to food. One day when oranges were served, she said,” I am going to take an orange and swallow it all down into my belly, and then I shall get a little child.”
Recently a case came to our attention of a boy of seven who developed conflicts and abnormal behavior because he attributed the origin of children to food. His parents stated that for six months he had been eating very little and for the past two months had often refused to eat anything. At meals he sometimes had “spells” during which he trembled and appeared to be terrified. His parents thought that his temperature rose at such times, and on several occasions called a physician. It was their opinion that the boy had some gastrointestinal difficulty which interfered with his appetite. They changed his diet and tried various methods of stimulating him to eat, such as timing each meal and sending him from the table when a definite interval had elapsed, but his appetite did not improve. He insisted that he did not care to eat, and finally said he was afraid to eat.