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Given how important it is to be properly loved by one’s parents in order to have an emotionally sane grown-up life,
考虑到父母恰到好处的爱对于情感健全的成年生活是多么重要，
one may wonder with some urgency why - in cases that range from the regrettable to the truly tragic-the process can go so wrong.
人们可能会急切地想知道，从不幸的境遇变为真正的悲剧，为什么这个过程会变得如此糟糕。
Why do some parents - who might in other areas be decent and thoughtful characters - fail so badly at being able to love the small people they have brought into the world?
为什么有些父母——在其他方面可能是正派和有思想的角色——但在给予他们带到这个世界上的小人儿爱方面却如此失败？
Among the many possibilities, two stand out in particular.
在众多可能性中，有两个原因特别突出。
The first stems from one of the most obvious and unavoidable features of early childhood: an infant arrives on earth in an entirely and almost shockingly vulnerable state.
第一种情况源于幼儿时期最明显和不可避免的特征之一：婴儿来到地球时处于完全脆弱的状态，脆弱到令人震惊。
It cannot move its own head, it is utterly reliant on others, it has no understanding of any of its organs, it is in a penumbra of chaos and mystery.
它不能移动自己的头，完全依赖于他人，对自己的任何器官都不了解，处于混乱和神秘的半暗带中。
In such helpless circumstances, it must look up to others and beseech them for their mercy: it must ask them to bring it nourishment, to stroke its head, to bathe its limbs, to comfort it after a feed, to make sense of its fury and sadness.
在这种无助的情况下，它必须仰视他人，乞求他人的怜悯:它必须请求他人给它营养，抚摸它的头，沐浴它的身体，喂饱它后安慰它，理解它的愤怒和悲伤。
To most people, all this is just extremely sweet.
对大多数人来说，这一切都是非常甜蜜的。
But in order to take care of a very small person, an adult is forced to undertake a very particular kind of emotional manoeuvre, one which happens so intuitively and speedily in most of us, we tend not even to notice it unfolding:
但为了照顾一个小人儿，一个成年人被迫采取一种非常特殊的情感策略，这种策略在我们大多数人身上发生得如此直观和迅速，我们甚至没有注意到它的发展:
we are required to access our own memories of ourselves at whatever age our young and tender child happens to be, in order that we can then more precisely deliver to it the care and attention it needs.
无论我们年幼的孩子多大，我们都需要访问自己的记忆，以便我们能更准确地传递给他所需的关爱和关注。
Most adults have no problem connecting with the child version of ourselves.
大多数成年人与儿童版的我们沟通没有问题。
But this ability is far from natural or spontaneous: it is a function of health and a consequence of a degree of emotional privilege.
但这种能力并非自然或自发的：它是健康的一种功能，是某种程度的情感特权的结果。
For a more disadvantaged sort of parent, however, unbeknownst to themselves, the task of care-via-identification is overwhelmingly challenging.
然而，对于那些处境较差的父母来说，他们自己都不知道，通过身份识别来照顾孩子的任务是极具挑战性的。
Somewhere in themselves, a wall has been built, many metres thick and topped with razor wire, between their adult and child selves.
在他们自身的某个地方，已经建起了一堵墙，有好几米厚，顶部装有铁丝网，将他们的成人和儿童隔开。
Something in their childhoods was so difficult, they do not - and cannot - return there imaginatively.
在他们的童年时代，有些事情是如此艰难，他们没有——也不能——以想象的方式回到那里。
Perhaps there was a parent who died, or who touched them in a way they shouldn’t or who left them bereft and humiliated.
也许有父母去世了，或者用他们不该用的方式感动了他们，或者让他们失去了亲人，受到了羞辱。
Things in their childhoods were uncomfortable to such an extent that their whole adult identities have been founded on a thorough refusal ever to re-encounter the helplessness and vulnerability of their early years.
在他们的童年时期，事情是如此的不舒服，以至于他们的整个成人身份都建立在彻底拒绝再遇到他们早年的无助和脆弱的基础上。
They won’t be able to be patient with the little person’s clumsiness and confusion, they will have no interest in playing with teddies,
他们不会对小家伙的笨拙和困惑有耐心，他们不会对和泰迪熊玩耍感兴趣，
they will think it pathetic how tearful their child has become because a four leaf clover got crumpled or a favourite book has a tear in it.
他们会认为他们的孩子因为四叶草被弄皱了或最喜欢的书破了而泪流满面是多么可怜。
They may - despite themselves - end up saying ‘Don’t be so silly’ or even ‘Stop being so childish’.
他们可能会不由自主地说“别这么傻了”，甚至“别再这么孩子气了”。
There can follow a second characteristic and associated failing in a parent: unresolved envy.
父母的第二个特点和与之相关的失败是:未解决的嫉妒。
However peculiar it can sound, a parent may envy its own child for the possibility that it might have a better childhood than they had - and will unconsciously ensure it won’t.
不管这听起来多么奇怪，父母可能会嫉妒自己的孩子有可能比他们拥有更好的童年——而且会无意识地确保这样。
Though ostensibly committed to the care of the child, the parent will struggle against an impulse to inflict against it some of the very same obstacles they faced:
虽然父母表面上致力于照顾孩子，但他们会努力抵制一种冲动，想要给孩子施加一些与他们所面临的完全相同的障碍：
the same neglect, the same uncaring school, the same lack of help with their development…
同样的忽视，同样的漠视学校照顾，同样的不提供发展帮助…
The outward details may have changed, but the emotional impact will be the same.
表面上的细节可能已经改变，但情感影响将是相同的。
A new generation will suffer afresh.
新一代将重新受苦。
In order to parent properly, not only do we need to access our memories of our own childhoods, we need to be able to come to terms with our deprivations, so as not to feel jealous of those who might have a chance not to endure comparable ones in turn.
为了正确地为人父母，我们不仅需要唤起我们对童年的记忆，还需要能够接受我们被剥夺的事实，这样就不会嫉妒那些可能有机会不再忍受类似境遇的人。
But a certain kind of traumatised parent remains at some level identified in their minds as a needy, disappointed child who would find it unbearable that another child had more than they did.
但在某种程度上，受到创伤的父母在他们的脑海中仍然认为自己是一个需要关注的、失望的孩子，如果另一个孩子比他们拥有的更多，他们会感到难以忍受。
They are like a tormented and tormenting sibling in a disadvantaged household who takes out their pain on someone more helpless, scrupulously making sure that the other child is as sad and lacking as they are.
他们就像生活在贫困家庭中饱受折磨的兄弟姐妹，把自己的痛苦发泄在更无助的人身上，小心翼翼地确保另一个孩子也像他们一样悲伤和缺乏关注。
We cannot help having had the childhoods we had.
我们不能选择我们曾经拥有的童年。
But if we are planning to have a child, we have a supreme responsibility to ensure that we have a sane relationship to our own pasts:
但是，如果我们计划要一个孩子，我们有最大的责任确保我们与自己的过去保持一种健全的关系：
able to access them for reserves of tenderness and empathy, and able not to feel envious of those who do not have to partake in their sufferings.
能够接近它们，保留温情和同理心，并能够不嫉妒那些不需要分担他们痛苦的人。
We will be properly grown up when we are in a position to give our offspring the childhood we deserved, not the childhood we had.
当我们有能力给我们的孩子我们应得的童年，而不是我们拥有的童年时，我们就算是真正的长大了。 。
