Moms' Revolution

Heroism? Economic self-interest? Better look closer to home for the basic cause of the American Revolution--America's moms in fact. At least so argues Lloyd deMause, Director of New York's Institute for Psychohistory. Addressing the American Association for the Advancement of Science, deMause maintained that children in 18th century Europe grew up in cruel environments that induced them to accept punishment and avoid rebellious behavior. But American children of the same period, said deMause, had strong and loving mothers, and were later unhappy when they were denied love by their mothers or symbolic substitutes. When the symbolic Mother England withheld her love, the Americans quickly rebelled. The Revolution, argued deMause, was thus a massive "regression-rebirth fantasy," which is the re-experiencing of the events of birth. Now if only George III had been a woman . . . Anyone for going back to the old heroism--economic self-interest fantasy?

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