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I don't think Maslow's Hierarchy was meant to be thought about so literally - I view it as a gross generalization of the stages of personal advancement. You certainly can't, with any degree of accuracy, say to yourself, "Ok, I'm good on #1 & #2, let's work on steps 3 and 4!"
Personally, I have found that although steps 1 and 2 are fairly rock-bound, the higher stages seem to become much more muddled. I've often given the advice that to find belonging & love, one must have some self-esteem & self- love that seems to be implied by stage 4.
We are most certainly formed in a psychological sense by our early interactions with the world. Whether those interactions are ingrained as early as age 1, I'm not sure.
I see evidence of damage that I have done unknowingly to my daughter's psyche in her early years (Age 2 or 3: horsing around with her in the pool made her scared of water, which has resulted in major effort & push-back in our efforts to get her to learn to swim now at age 6). Note that I wasn't being meaning to scare her, per se, just the normal goofy-daddy stuff. Monitoring this and other parental fuck-ups has really caused me to pause & take a second look at my parenting skills.
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-Gerald R. Ford
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