Freud_Burlingham_1943_War_and_Children_k_text

Babies of this age who are left with us bymothers will usually have a short time of upset,may cry a while, have more difficulty in fallingasleep and show some irregularity in their digestionfor a day or two.We still have to learn exactly how muchof this upset is due to the disturbance of routineand how much to the change away fromthe individual handling and from the particularatmosphere of intimacy created by themother. The upset caused, is of course, of amore serious nature and of far longer durationin cases where the mother has been breastfeedingthe baby and weaning has to occursimultaneously with the separation. Weaning initself acts on the child as a loss of satisfactionand a separation from the mother in an importantsense.When the mother, who has left,reappears after a few days, the baby at thisstage willprobably not show signs of recognition.The second phase starts roughly, inthe second half of the first year of life.The materialrelationship to the mother still exists.The mother remains, as she will remain forseveral years, the instrument of satisfaction forthe child. But out of this ignoble beginningof a human relationship something differentbegins to grow.The baby begins to pay attention to the47