My clinical experience has suggested that a particular early interaction between mother and her infant is of special importance. It seems that the normal, healthy, good mother (choose any word you like best) often feels about her newborn infant that it is the most wonderful baby in the world and, moreover, that she is the greatest mother for this special infant. That appears to be the subjective experience of the mother-infant couple. Now it is of course easy for anybody outside this happy twosome to point out the unreality and even delusional or illusory aspects of this subjectively grandiose experience. And many reasonable and logical parents will realize this and try to put down their own irrational overestimation of themselves and their baby. I believe that they would be making a mistake in trying to be rational, rather I should think they should give in to their temporary sense of grandiosity and communicate it to the baby for I think that this baby's later self-esteem in life is at least partially grounded in this early experience of blissful wonderful greatness. To have one's illusions debunked into reality is not always the best guide to a healthy self-esteem. We all need a dose of something more as a protection against an empty depressed self and the earliest infantile experiences can form the basis.