The Phallic Stage

This morning, as I was reading my developmental psychology (that should have been read 6 weeks ago) I started on my section about Freud and children in what he considers the "Phallic Stage". For those of you who don't know, the phallic stage is defined in my book as "The period from about age 3 to 6 is the phallic stage because he believed its central focus is the phallus, or penis."

The more and more I read, the more and more ridiculous it sounded to me. I've had 6 psychology classes in my college career and every time I read one of Freud's theories, the crazier I think he is. This one particularly made me roll my eyes today. Ally is 3 and has never asked about anything Freud talks about in the Phallic Stage. She has never once mentioned marrying her dad as the Electra complex suggests. (Of course she is convinced she is going to kiss a frog, turn into a pig, and then have many many pig frog horse cookie babies named "Pinkie Pie"). I also see her many 3 year old friends and their parents on regular basis and I have never heard any of them talk about any Freudian experiences with their kids.

So after skipping over the rest of Freud nonsense and moving onto behaviorism...we left to to go Keeneland.

It was about 3 hours into this beautiful Keeneland day when a little boy who was also 3 came up and asked to play with Ally. Naffiany (which was Ally's name today...I'll get to that later) selflessly agreed to share (steal) Cooper's stick horse and the two began to play. I swear to God, this is the conversation that followed.

Little Boy: My horse is really fast! He's brown. I have a penis, it's right
here (points to crotch)

Long Pause.

Jordan: Oh. Okay.

Little Boy: My daddy has a penis too. Boys have them. Girls have naginas.
They don't have penises. Just boys and daddy's.

Mom: Did I just hear what I think I just heard?

This was proceeded by hysterical laughter as the little boy continued to explain to each of us whether we had a penis or a "nagina".

Finally his mom who unknowingly was sitting on a blanket a few feet away walked over to make sure her son was being "good". If she only knew...

Of course it probably wouldn't have been as embarrassing as having to introduce your 3 year old sister as Naffiany. (Which we did figure out 9 hours later was Ally's way of saying Daphne since we watched Scooby Doo this morning).

Lesson of the day: I guess I'm in college for a reason...and Freud is still in textbooks for a reason. I'll never doubt again.