Happy Birthday to Me

ON this first of January, 1961--I am six years old. This absurd, pathetic yet somehow deeply grateful statement comes from the mother of a strapping sixteen-year-old son who would often be the first to concur with it. After all he had most of his early years with a female parent of lofty infallibility, of insistent and absolute adult authority. He knew a chic, successful business mother, an accomplished and self-acknowledged egg head. His early conscious memories are perforce full of tender-loving-care, of wholesome meals, of expert and correct freedom from "smothering." All the attitudes, the proven formulas, the right procedures for his emotional health and mental stability were his to thrive and grow on. They came from the most concerned and competent of experts--from Spock and Gesell to the Child's Guidance Clinic.