Note 208 — Chapter XIV · THE ATTITUDE OF PARENTS TO CHILDREN

This is sometimes shown quite openly in poor families, where the parents "don't believe in their children having a better time than they did" and where the children will not infrequently console themselves for the sufferings they endure at the hands of their parents by the thought of what they in their turn when grown up, will do to their children.

Often however, the cruelty inflicted from this motive is rationalised as a desire to avoid spoiling the child and to prepare him for the rough time that he will have in later life. (Cp. this with the motives underlying the infliction of punishment at initiation ceremonies among primitive peoples, p. 83.).