19XX
A young Lazlo Valentin
"Why are you never perfect like your sister?!"
"I'm sorry mother," the ruler smacked my knuckles, "I'm so sorry!"
"Etiquette is the key to being a real man! How do you expect to hold a brush like your aunt, or wield the scalpel like your father; when you can't even hold a fork!?"
The ruler popped the blisters from the previous beatings. Only after my hands were covered in their clear watery pus did mother stop. I must be perfect but how can I be perfect when someone else already is?!
It was later that night, as I read the papers of Harry Harlow. I read his books but did not understand. Did not understand that one can never please a mother of wire nor a mother of nails.
Harry Harlow’s theory of Maternal Affection was instrumental in the development of Professor Pyg. The test consisted of one hard “wire” mother and one cloth. The wire mother drove it’s children to insanity…