If you give him
pleasure he likes you; if pain, he does not want you. His mother often
fails to please him, but satisfies him so much more frequently than
anybody else that he loves her best. Then comes nurse or father--if he
proves the satisfactory kind of father, or she a nurse he can love. To
the baby whatever he happens to want is good. What is not desirable is
bad. And such emotional responses are altogether normal in early months,
yes, even until the child is old enough to use reason to choose between
two desires the one that will in the end prove more satisfying. But they
are defects in adult life.
The nurse who would always act as her first feeling dictates would not
be in training many days. Unpleasant sights and sounds, the fear of
making a mistake which might harm a patient, the undesirability of long
hours of hard work in caring for patients who frequently only find fault
with her best efforts, would early decide her in favor of another
life-work. Comparatively few so-called "grown-ups" are guided only by
feeling; and most of those are in institutions that are well
safeguarded.
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