Early on in every life, a child will look up and - implicitly - ask the world: Am I OK?
Do I deserve goodwill and sympathy?
Am I on track?
And, most commonly, the person who first answers these questions is a parent.
Perhaps this parent happens to be generous and sympathetic,
they are warm and understanding of the challenges of being alive - in which case the child develops an easy conscience.
In the years to come, they appraise themselves with benignancy, they don't continuously have to wonder whether they have a right to exist.
They are comfortably on their own side.
But if the parent is more punitive, the picture grows darker: approval is always uncertain, there is a constant fear of being called arrogant or of being upbraided for something one hadn't thought about.
What's tricky is that consciences don't stay neatly identified with those who kickstarted them.
