ABSTRACT
The wish to have a baby is often already present in childhood. I remember being far less interested in dolls than in live babies. The fact that I was the youngest child in my family probably had something to do with it. Did I feel dolls to be like dead babies, lifeless, worried about my mother having no more babies after me? I begged to be allowed to push the pram and spoon-feed the baby of one of my mother’s friends. Pets also aroused maternal feelings: I loved Anton, my uncle’s dog whom I often took for a walk and, of course, my two canaries whom I looked after and hoped they would mate and have little ones. I was very disappointed when they did not do so.
