Freud_Burlingham_1943_War_and_Children_k_text

death of the father or mother small childrenbehave as if their parents had just gone away.We can certainly say that when parents haveonly "gone away" the children behave as ifthey had died. This only means to say that theimportant factor for the small child is bodilyabsence or presence of the mother. The questionof existence or non-existence in the realworld seems to be beyond the child's emotionalcomprehension.But even though, in that sense, allthese littlechildren who are separated from their parentsare war orphans, the attitude of the worldaround is to disregard the identity of the innerpsychic situation of the two kinds of childrenand cling to the importance of the outer reality.The child whose parents have been killedin an air-raid is an object of pity and all thedifficulties that he shows seem somehow naturaland are met with tolerance. The child who isonly billeted in the country while his parentscontinue to live in London is only consideredto "fret" and expected to get over it "in notime". Therefore it is precisely the study ofthe real war orphan and his reactions whichmay be of help to create a better understandingofthe "evacuated" child.121