Can a mother have a Favourite Child?

[Sushan]

Humans have likes and dislikes, and that is in their nature. But when you become a parent that usual behaviour and thought procedure should change by a bit towards your own kids. Anyone can have favourite dogs, meals, or even siblings. But I do not think a child might have a favourite parent out of the two.

Every child has a preference for one parent or another. Though this may change over time according to age and activities it is nonethless true.

And it is advised not to ask from kids to who they love most, mother or the father, because it is really a hard question, and it gets even harder when both parents are present. I think the same applies to parents when it comes to their own children.

Kids are very artuculate about whom they favour too. They know who is the best at bed time stories, who is best at helping them with homework and who is best when playing football.
It is unreasonable to expect children to surpress these ideas.
Parents, though, have a responsibility to minimise their favoritism and spread their love and attention as evenly as possible.

It is commonly said that naturally boys are more close to mother and girls to father.

Where on earth do you get such silly ideas. That is false.
Where you attracted to your mother? Maybe you think your daughter if you have one is attracted to you.
My advice - avoid incest.

I think this comes with Freudian psychology.

Freud was a product of a generation of sexual repression. THis is in no way "natural".
He is widely debunked, and rarely used thse days. He still commands respect as the first in the field of psychology, but I do not think he is taken seriously mcuh these days.

Children can show in open to whom they like or love more. And there is no need to supress that since parents are (or should be) mature enough to tolerate not being the favourite parent of his/her own child. But I do not think not asking from children which parent they love most is a suppression, and it is a situation which is better to avoid for the sake of the comfort of the child.

What I mentioned above is not incest. It is called Oedipus theory, which was brought forward by Dr. Sigmond Freud, who is widely accepted as the father of modern psychology and the father of psychoanalysis. It is true that his theories are not accepted by each and every one. But that does not mean they are wrong. The era in which Freud was maybe an era of sexual repression. But that social fact was just a single fact that may have affected his theories. He had his own analytics and his own reasons for his theories.

[Sushan]

Though you are a parent, well adjusted in your personal life, and having no mental, psychological or social issues, I do not think it will be tolerable to hear that your parents prefer your sibling more over you. So direct conveyance of such a thing will not be a good idea at all. The acts of parents usually lead the children to think that they are having unequal preferences, and it can very well set off rivalry between the siblings.

We are in agreement that the situation where such a discussion could not be negative would be rare. We differ in our understanding that rare is different from never.

In this particular topic I think rare is much closer to never. I may not be able to tolerate being the less favourite child of my parents. And usually this is the issue with younger children of a family, in which the elder kids have already achieved a lot and the parents take them as the ideal examples for younger children, inevitability letting them to have the idea that the parents love the elder children more. Only a kid with either a very strong mind or one who does not care at all will ignore being the less (or least) favourite child of his/her parents.

Agreed, but you aren't everybody. It can be difficult to appreciate that something that one cannot tolerate is no big deal to someone else. After all, every parent is also a child. If you understand the concept with your children, why can't you with your parents? Answer is, some can.

When the decisions, judgements, and understandings are associated with emotions they can be pretty biased. Doctors are advised not to treat their close ones in a critical medical condition sine the emotions may affect the vital decision making. The same thing applies to other humans in other situations as well. Anyone maybe able to understand anything when the facts are well analyzed and the IQ is normal. But the ability to accept the truth may not be that much simple if the emotions play a big role.

[LuckyR]

We are in agreement that the situation where such a discussion could not be negative would be rare. We differ in our understanding that rare is different from never.

In this particular topic I think rare is much closer to never. I may not be able to tolerate being the less favourite child of my parents. And usually this is the issue with younger children of a family, in which the elder kids have already achieved a lot and the parents take them as the ideal examples for younger children, inevitability letting them to have the idea that the parents love the elder children more. Only a kid with either a very strong mind or one who does not care at all will ignore being the less (or least) favourite child of his/her parents.

Agreed, but you aren't everybody. It can be difficult to appreciate that something that one cannot tolerate is no big deal to someone else. After all, every parent is also a child. If you understand the concept with your children, why can't you with your parents? Answer is, some can.

When the decisions, judgements, and understandings are associated with emotions they can be pretty biased. Doctors are advised not to treat their close ones in a critical medical condition sine the emotions may affect the vital decision making. The same thing applies to other humans in other situations as well. Anyone maybe able to understand anything when the facts are well analyzed and the IQ is normal. But the ability to accept the truth may not be that much simple if the emotions play a big role.

All true, many folks handle certain situations exactly as you describe. However many don't.

[Sculptor1]

Every child has a preference for one parent or another. Though this may change over time according to age and activities it is nonethless true.

Kids are very artuculate about whom they favour too. They know who is the best at bed time stories, who is best at helping them with homework and who is best when playing football.
It is unreasonable to expect children to surpress these ideas.
Parents, though, have a responsibility to minimise their favoritism and spread their love and attention as evenly as possible.

It is commonly said that naturally boys are more close to mother and girls to father.

Where on earth do you get such silly ideas. That is false.
Where you attracted to your mother? Maybe you think your daughter if you have one is attracted to you.
My advice - avoid incest.

I think this comes with Freudian psychology.

Freud was a product of a generation of sexual repression. THis is in no way "natural".
He is widely debunked, and rarely used thse days. He still commands respect as the first in the field of psychology, but I do not think he is taken seriously mcuh these days.

Children can show in open to whom they like or love more. And there is no need to supress that since parents are (or should be) mature enough to tolerate not being the favourite parent of his/her own child. But I do not think not asking from children which parent they love most is a suppression, and it is a situation which is better to avoid for the sake of the comfort of the child.

What I mentioned above is not incest. It is called Oedipus theory, which was brought forward by Dr. Sigmond Freud, who is widely accepted as the father of modern psychology and the father of psychoanalysis. It is true that his theories are not accepted by each and every one. But that does not mean they are wrong. The era in which Freud was maybe an era of sexual repression. But that social fact was just a single fact that may have affected his theories. He had his own analytics and his own reasons for his theories.

Freud is a man of his times. Post Victoriana - sexual repression. It has very little to recommend it post 1960s
Popper has a lot to say about his methods.

[Ecurb]

Freud is a man of his times. Post Victoriana - sexual repression. It has very little to recommend it post 1960s
Popper has a lot to say about his methods.

IN the first half of the 20th century Freudianism almost became a religion, worshipped by intellectuals. The tide has turned, and now it is fashionable to debunk Freud. Popper claimed Freud's theories were not "falsifiable". We cannot assume from this that they were false. On the contrary -- we can only assume some theory is false if it IS falsifiable.

Popper's antipathy really meant that Freud's theories were unscientific. That's obvious. Nonetheless, many "unscientific" theories are both correct and valuable (like math, for one). Freud revolutionized the way we think about ourselves -- he was more of a philospher and literary figure than a scientist. The Oedipus Complex is both an (unfalsifiable) theory of human development, and a form of literary criticism (of the Oedipus myth, and the entire complex of Totem and Taboo). Freud was probably one of the most influential thinkers of the last 200 years, along with Darwin (whose theories are also unfalsifiable), Marx (who taught people to think of history as a science, which may or may not be helpful), and (perhaps) Einstein (who changed human thinking less than the other three). Like Freud, Marx and Darwin were wrong about a great many things. Revolutionary thinkers generally are.

[Sculptor1]

Freud is a man of his times. Post Victoriana - sexual repression. It has very little to recommend it post 1960s
Popper has a lot to say about his methods.

IN the first half of the 20th century Freudianism almost became a religion, worshipped by intellectuals.

That is seriously overstated. He's always neen controversial.

The tide has turned, and now it is fashionable to debunk Freud. Popper claimed Freud's theories were not "falsifiable". We cannot assume from this that they were false. On the contrary -- we can only assume some theory is false if it IS falsifiable.

Popper shows hoe his theories can be shown to work regardless of the evidence. That make them useless.

Popper's antipathy really meant that Freud's theories were unscientific. That's obvious. Nonetheless, many "unscientific" theories are both correct and valuable (like math, for one).

I can't take you seriously if you are trying to compare maths and psychoanalysis.

Freud revolutionized the way we think about ourselves -- he was more of a philospher and literary figure than a scientist.

So did Jung but he says something competely different.

The Oedipus Complex is both an (unfalsifiable) theory of human development, and a form of literary criticism (of the Oedipus myth, and the entire complex of Totem and Taboo). Freud was probably one of the most influential thinkers of the last 200 years, along with Darwin (whose theories are also unfalsifiable),

Popper did not reject Darwin, though he DID reject Frued. The Oedipus complex says nothing about boys relationships with their mothers and EVERYTHING about Freud's relationship with his own mother - the rest is just selective bias on Freud's part.

Marx (who taught people to think of history as a science, which may or may not be helpful), and (perhaps) Einstein (who changed human thinking less than the other three). Like Freud, Marx and Darwin were wrong about a great many things. Revolutionary thinkers generally are.

The beauty of Darwin is that he described much and concluded little. Pratically nothing he said has failed. Many things he proposed speculatively he did not get right, but he predicted the discovery of genes, and his main argument is now solid.

Freud said much, and claimed too much, but with far too little empirical basis - that is where he failed.
Jung failed because he was writing in the medium of culturally specific notions of mysticism and spiritualism.

I would hazzard a guess that they are both to be superceeded with neural science.

[Ecurb]

Popper did not reject Darwin, though he DID reject Frued. The Oedipus complex says nothing about boys relationships with their mothers and EVERYTHING about Freud's relationship with his own mother - the rest is just selective bias on Freud's part.

.

Freud didn't invent Oedipus; the ancient Greeks did. Why does the myth resonate? Why is Sophocles' play perhaps the most famous of the Greek plays? There must be something there that has captured the interest of generation after generation. Similarly, the Kangaroo Clan, which abstains from eating their mythical fathers the kangaroos for 51 weeks of the year, has a ritual feast in which they kill and eat kangaroos. Freud's analysis of this ritual is purely speculative -- but there is obviously something going on that makes this kind of ritual widely practiced among hunters and gatherers.

Many of Freud's theories have been disproven by anthropological research. The "Culture and Personality" school of antropology posited that child rearing practices mold adult personalities, which would be reflected in cultural practices. Scholars like Margaret Meade and Ruth Benbedict were adherents. For example, it was theorized that a powerful, otiose father figure would often be reflected in religion, with a distant and powerful male God. Of course this was the case in Freud's Vienna, but cross cultural research did not support the theory.

Math is simply one example of a non-scientific path to knowledge. Psychoanalysis is (perhaps) another. At least many people think it is (I've never indulged).

Darwinian evolution is not "falsifiable" because, like math, it is correct a priori. If traits are inherited, they will spread to the extent that they are inherited more often. Descendant-leaving-success'. It is neither arguable, nor falisfiable.

[Sculptor1]

Popper did not reject Darwin, though he DID reject Frued. The Oedipus complex says nothing about boys relationships with their mothers and EVERYTHING about Freud's relationship with his own mother - the rest is just selective bias on Freud's part.

.

Freud didn't invent Oedipus; the ancient Greeks did.

Freud inveted the Oedipus complex. Before Freud twisted it to his own ends, before that is was just a drama by Sophocles. The Greeks also "invented" achilleius, and monty more things besides. None of them did they ever elevate to a psychological problem.

Why does the myth resonate? Why is Sophocles' play perhaps the most famous of the Greek plays?

He resonants because Freud maked somthing of it.
If Freud had been obsessed with people wandering the earth , and less about being obsesses with having sex with his own mother, then we'd have an Odysseus complex. By failing to recognise this you are showing exactly the same sort of selective bias that Popper accuses Freud of in the first place.

There must be something there that has captured the interest of generation after generation.

This is in your imagination. Show me this interest! Oedipus has attracted no more interest than any other Greek play, and less than most.

Similarly, the Kangaroo Clan, which abstains from eating their mythical fathers the kangaroos for 51 weeks of the year, has a ritual feast in which they kill and eat kangaroos. Freud's analysis of this ritual is purely speculative -- but there is obviously something going on that makes this kind of ritual widely practiced among hunters and gatherers.

Many of Freud's theories have been disproven by anthropological research. The "Culture and Personality" school of antropology posited that child rearing practices mold adult personalities, which would be reflected in cultural practices. Scholars like Margaret Meade and Ruth Benbedict were adherents. For example, it was theorized that a powerful, otiose father figure would often be reflected in religion, with a distant and powerful male God. Of course this was the case in Freud's Vienna, but cross cultural research did not support the theory.

Math is simply one example of a non-scientific path to knowledge. Psychoanalysis is (perhaps) another. At least many people think it is (I've never indulged).

Darwinian evolution is not "falsifiable" because, like math, it is correct a priori. If traits are inherited, they will spread to the extent that they are inherited more often. Descendant-leaving-success'. It is neither arguable, nor falisfiable.

And yet it took millenia of thinking to formalise the idea.

[Ecurb]

I googled "most popular Greek plays" and of the ten or so web sites I looked at, Oedipus Rex was listed in every one. Antigone (part of the three plays in the Oedipus trilogy) was also listed on most of them. Of course this might be due to Freud and his popularization of the "Oedipus Complex". But it supports my notion. https://www.google.com/search?q=most+fa ... e&ie=UTF-8

Darwin's theories were original -- especially in terms of describing the "origin of species", which had often been considered divine prior to Darwin. It is only the "descendant leaving success" part of the theory that is a priori correct.

I highly recommend Freud's excellent book "Totem and Taboo". It will certainly not persuade anyone to give credence to Freud's theories -- but it's so whacky that it makes for great reading. Freud was an excellent writer, and that is one reason for his popularity. The ritual killing and eating of a tribe's mythical "fathers" (combined with the normal abstinence from killing or eating this potentially nourishing food source) is bizarre enough to at least deserve our attention.

[Sushan]

In this particular topic I think rare is much closer to never. I may not be able to tolerate being the less favourite child of my parents. And usually this is the issue with younger children of a family, in which the elder kids have already achieved a lot and the parents take them as the ideal examples for younger children, inevitability letting them to have the idea that the parents love the elder children more. Only a kid with either a very strong mind or one who does not care at all will ignore being the less (or least) favourite child of his/her parents.

Agreed, but you aren't everybody. It can be difficult to appreciate that something that one cannot tolerate is no big deal to someone else. After all, every parent is also a child. If you understand the concept with your children, why can't you with your parents? Answer is, some can.

When the decisions, judgements, and understandings are associated with emotions they can be pretty biased. Doctors are advised not to treat their close ones in a critical medical condition sine the emotions may affect the vital decision making. The same thing applies to other humans in other situations as well. Anyone maybe able to understand anything when the facts are well analyzed and the IQ is normal. But the ability to accept the truth may not be that much simple if the emotions play a big role.

All true, many folks handle certain situations exactly as you describe. However many don't.

I am not certain of many humans being able to look at things objectively without giving in to their emotional biases. Even a jury can be biased emotionally (and I am happy for our legal system currently not practicing this). When it comes to one's loved ones I think this biases are pretty obvious. I am not a parent yet. So I am unable to look at this question from the point of a parent. But as a child I cannot tolerate my sibling being their favourite, and they openly showing it.

[Sushan]

It is commonly said that naturally boys are more close to mother and girls to father.

Where on earth do you get such silly ideas. That is false.
Where you attracted to your mother? Maybe you think your daughter if you have one is attracted to you.
My advice - avoid incest.

I think this comes with Freudian psychology.

Freud was a product of a generation of sexual repression. THis is in no way "natural".
He is widely debunked, and rarely used thse days. He still commands respect as the first in the field of psychology, but I do not think he is taken seriously mcuh these days.

Children can show in open to whom they like or love more. And there is no need to supress that since parents are (or should be) mature enough to tolerate not being the favourite parent of his/her own child. But I do not think not asking from children which parent they love most is a suppression, and it is a situation which is better to avoid for the sake of the comfort of the child.

What I mentioned above is not incest. It is called Oedipus theory, which was brought forward by Dr. Sigmond Freud, who is widely accepted as the father of modern psychology and the father of psychoanalysis. It is true that his theories are not accepted by each and every one. But that does not mean they are wrong. The era in which Freud was maybe an era of sexual repression. But that social fact was just a single fact that may have affected his theories. He had his own analytics and his own reasons for his theories.

Freud is a man of his times. Post Victoriana - sexual repression. It has very little to recommend it post 1960s
Popper has a lot to say about his methods.

Do we see Karl Popper's falsification theory being widely used in today's scientific practice? No. Scientists care about the practicality of the scientific findings rather than the ability to disprove them in order to see whether those findings and theories are scientific or not. And we see many critics who criticize Karl Popper such as Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, and Imre Lakatos.

So Popper's claim of Freudian theories being non scientific and non acceptable are only for him and his followers, but not for the whole world.

[Sushan]

Freud is a man of his times. Post Victoriana - sexual repression. It has very little to recommend it post 1960s
Popper has a lot to say about his methods.

IN the first half of the 20th century Freudianism almost became a religion, worshipped by intellectuals. The tide has turned, and now it is fashionable to debunk Freud. Popper claimed Freud's theories were not "falsifiable". We cannot assume from this that they were false. On the contrary -- we can only assume some theory is false if it IS falsifiable.

Popper's antipathy really meant that Freud's theories were unscientific. That's obvious. Nonetheless, many "unscientific" theories are both correct and valuable (like math, for one). Freud revolutionized the way we think about ourselves -- he was more of a philospher and literary figure than a scientist. The Oedipus Complex is both an (unfalsifiable) theory of human development, and a form of literary criticism (of the Oedipus myth, and the entire complex of Totem and Taboo). Freud was probably one of the most influential thinkers of the last 200 years, along with Darwin (whose theories are also unfalsifiable), Marx (who taught people to think of history as a science, which may or may not be helpful), and (perhaps) Einstein (who changed human thinking less than the other three). Like Freud, Marx and Darwin were wrong about a great many things. Revolutionary thinkers generally are.

I agree. Popper tried to change the historical basis of science, the scientific method of proving theories through observations and experiments. He tried to demarcate science from non-science. But is there an actual use of what he taught? I don't think so.

Yes, he did not disprove Freud. He simply claimed that Freudian theories are non scientific. But does that mean they are flase as well. I don't think so.

[Sculptor1]

Where on earth do you get such silly ideas. That is false.
Where you attracted to your mother? Maybe you think your daughter if you have one is attracted to you.
My advice - avoid incest.


Freud was a product of a generation of sexual repression. THis is in no way "natural".
He is widely debunked, and rarely used thse days. He still commands respect as the first in the field of psychology, but I do not think he is taken seriously mcuh these days.

What I mentioned above is not incest. It is called Oedipus theory, which was brought forward by Dr. Sigmond Freud, who is widely accepted as the father of modern psychology and the father of psychoanalysis. It is true that his theories are not accepted by each and every one. But that does not mean they are wrong. The era in which Freud was maybe an era of sexual repression. But that social fact was just a single fact that may have affected his theories. He had his own analytics and his own reasons for his theories.

Freud is a man of his times. Post Victoriana - sexual repression. It has very little to recommend it post 1960s
Popper has a lot to say about his methods.

Do we see Karl Popper's falsification theory being widely used in today's scientific practice? No.

Er.... Yes we do.

Scientists care about the practicality of the scientific findings rather than the ability to disprove them in order to see whether those findings and theories are scientific or not. And we see many critics who criticize Karl Popper such as Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, and Imre Lakatos.

Scientists do not care much for Feyeraband. Scientists I know do recognise Kuhn but there are all more interested in Popper's contributions.

So Popper's claim of Freudian theories being non scientific and non acceptable are only for him and his followers, but not for the whole world.

A bold and empty statement which is simply false.

[Ecurb]

The scientists I've worked with specifically used "falsification" as the basis for their studies. I worked for a company that made OTC drugs, and we funded clinical studies on some of them (I worked with the researchers on this). A good, double blinded, placebo controlled drug study falsifies the "null hypothesis". The null hypothesis is that the palcebo and the drug will work equally well. When this is "falsified", credence for the efficacy of the drug is established.

[Sushan]

The scientists I've worked with specifically used "falsification" as the basis for their studies. I worked for a company that made OTC drugs, and we funded clinical studies on some of them (I worked with the researchers on this). A good, double blinded, placebo controlled drug study falsifies the "null hypothesis". The null hypothesis is that the palcebo and the drug will work equally well. When this is "falsified", credence for the efficacy of the drug is established.

Seemingly falsifiability is used in synonym with testability. Yes, we prove that the null hypothesis can be falsified in our research experiments, so the hypothesis can be accepted. But if we directly apply what Karl Popper said in this matter it shows that null hypothesis is very much scientific. Then what about our original hypothesis? Is it scientific or not? Maybe I have not correctly understood Popper's theory, or today's scientific researches and their publications focus on the wrong side. Maybe they should be talking about null hypothesis, but not the actually tested hypothesis because it is null hypothesis that ultimately proven falsifiable, and hence scientific.