Dr. Sigmund Freud used the term “His Majesty, the Baby” to describe the infantile behavior of some adults. Freud died in 1939 so this is not some new behavior. Those who work with chemically dependent people often talk about “King Baby” or “Queen Baby” when describing this type of behavior. I will use “K/Q Baby” to cover both sexes in this article.
The third step in the 12 Step program for recovering chemically dependent people is: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.” We are not in control of the world and we are not totally in control of ourselves. The spiritual writers are often telling us to “surrender to God.” Ignatius of Loyola has given us the following prayer:
“Take Lord, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding and my entire will, all that I have and possess. You have given all to me. I surrender it all to you to be disposed of according to your will. Give me only your love and your grace; that’s enough for me.”
This is hard for us to do. We want to be in control. We often keep God at a distance.
Who is a K/Q Baby? In our mother’s womb we experienced warmth, security, comfort, freedom and power. All our needs were met. We came into the world screaming but we soon found out that all our needs were met in a different way – food, security, attention and love.
With maturity, most people realize that they are not the centers of the universe and they learn to cope with the new challenges of life. K/Q Babies want to hold onto the experiences of infant life where all their needs met. The following are some characteristics that K/Q Babies exhibit.
They seek the approval of others and often lose their own identities in the process. They make good first impressions but are unable to finish various tasks and have difficult accepting criticism. They have addictive personalities and are often driven to extremes. They see the world as a jungle filled with selfish people who are not there for them.
They look at things in extremes: black or white, right or wrong. They live in the past while fearing the future. They have strong dependent feelings and exaggerated fears of abandonment. They are obsessed with money and material things. They believe rules and laws are for others, not for themselves. They hold their emotional pain within and lose touch with their feelings.
Understand the K/Q Baby is difficult because they are “wearing a mask.” They have two motiving factors: the scared, lonely child does not want to be hurt anymore; and secondly, the K/Q Baby is never satisfied. They are always right while others are wrong. Power, attention and pleasure drive them. Maybe we have some of these qualities in ourselves
The only conquest that brings peace and happiness is the conquest of self. The most interesting journey we can make is discovering who we are. We have to be willing to look at ourselves and get in touch with our shadow side. We have to name the “demon,” claim it as our own, tame it, and replace it with something positive.
We must learn to use things and love people and not love things and use people. In the words of Henry David Thoreau, “To find the best in others, to give of oneself without the slightest thought of return, and to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.” To make this happen we need to surrender to the power of God.
To go from victim to victory we must eliminate all excuses. We must take responsibility for our own lives and stop blaming other for our failures. Then we will go from being a victim to finding the right path to peace, love, happiness and success. “Let go and let God.”
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