There are Rosebud moments in infant lives, moments of before and after, moments which cause that child, that neurologically sensitive organism, to alter in ways which forever after become the template, and which are forgotten. They remain until, perhaps, the moment of death, and in the case of preverbal assaults on self, likely never reappear ever in this life.
Psychopaths and narcissists are such people. They cannot remember a before, even neurologically, even somatically.
In my own case, I was broken around age 5. Between age 5 and 7 certainly, which is to say within the domain of memory. I can remember struggles before that. They are in my body. I feel them every night. I fought with every ounce of my infant and toddler being against the dying of the light. And I lost. But something survived. This is my fortune, my luxury. Not all are granted that.
One last comment: totalitarianism–which is the outcome of an aggregate of work by highly disturbed people–might be seen as a motherless world. And such motherless worlds are created ONLY by motherless people. They are created by people who were broken while still in the crib, and the language they use to justify their crimes is irrelevant.
In some more enlightened future we might privilege the role of mother above all others, understanding that the child of the woman is the future of the world. As mothers go, so go we all.
And ponder, if you will, the status of the role of mother in our present society. Her primary political claim is her right to destroy her child, to treat it as personal property, to be disposed of as she chooses, for any reason, and at any time.
Feminists, those who claim to speak for women, denigrate the role of mother. Only the religious still agitate for it, and those who still speak thus are, obviously, under attack.
Motherless children are gaining ground. We need to stop them.