Possessiveness, Money, and Their Roots in Childhood

Money may be the archetypical object correlated with, if not equal to, the concept of a tangible possession. This possession has intrinsic, socially reinforced meanings explicitly linked with power, control, and efficacy. Developmentally, children view property and possessions as their form of money. The complex interactions of love, hate, jealousy, and greed are the emotional drives that give possessions value. These root psychological forces amplify acquisitiveness—a focus on acquiring wealth and possessions from childhood into adulthood. Acquisition is normal for building knowledge, skills, and material possessions. When acquisition is excessive, disordered thinking and behaviors may occur.

Source: "Womb Dynamics" original oil by Frank John Ninivaggi 1965

The Psychological Role of Money and Possessions

The actual possession of money in adult life may be the common denominator of all essential personal possessions, along with the fundamental affectionate bonds making human relationships satisfying and worthwhile. The significance of an inanimate object can be fully understood in the "triangularity" of the child's or adult's attraction to it, with the "attraction" being the third focus of the triangle. The original triangle is the child's biomental template of the mother, child, and third person, typically the father. The triangle's points signify the persons; the sides are their relationships. This interpersonal and social configuration imputes objects, i.e., points and sides, with value-laden meaning. An inanimate focus or "object," (e.g., money or possessions) becomes a symbolic pawn for defining the relation between the child and parent or another person by the power and control to regulate relations.

Money is a medium of exchange, a measure, and a storehouse of objective value. Money shows its power in its need to be exchanged between and among people. As a measure of value, it is an agreed-upon standard and unit of account, a necessary prerequisite for economic agreements involving buying, selling, and debt. As a store of value, money can be gained, saved, and retrieved for future negotiations. Thus, money is a liquid agent of effectively regulated interpersonal and social transactions. A less liquid, yet clear-cut, sign of possessions is owning property.

Thus, money is a material, tangible asset with the power to control transactions. Money and property start their journey of value early in childhood, and this developmental progression varies with age and gains complexity. For children, money is a commodity asset, (e.g., socially valued goods like gold, oil, or grain) not a representative one (e.g., currency notes and coins). For a child, the commodity is defined by a decree based on likes, preferences, and peer significance, such as a Pokemon card or video game. In middle childhood, children use possessions, a marker of value, to reinforce self-other differentiation, enhance personal identity, and soak up the power inherent in this marker.

The Development of Helplessness and its Management

The hallmark of infancy and childhood is helplessness, powerlessness, and striving to manage these needs for more competence. Given a child's utter dependency in early life, responsible adults make survival possible. The developmental perspective, intrinsic to childhood, comprising growth, unfolding maturation, and adaptive reconfigurations, overarches this configuration of child and adult. The course is progressive, interspersed with faster, slower, and uneven cycles, with the observable signs of child behavior marking progress milestones. Yet, children's developing needs and behaviors move toward familiar adult end-points that signal greater self-dependence and more adaptive internalization of previously shared needs and experiences.

Infancy

Infancy launches human development, beginning with helplessness as its predominating condition. Nurturing parents respond to this lack of personal control and power by using their "specific actions" to relieve discomfort and quell anxiety. For example, infants need to be fed and their diapers changed. This total dependence on caregivers ensures survival and establishes an infant's implicit sense of the caregiver's enormous power. The infant thus attributes compelling value to its caretaker.

Toddler Development

The toddler stage, roughly from 12 to 36 months, is an era where passivity advances toward incremental action. For example, bladder and bowel control become gradually more self-managed, as is fine and gross motor coordination to feed oneself and begin walking unaided. Another hallmark of development is an explosion of language. During this time, the toddler can say "mine," which shows an awareness of developing self-other boundaries and an expressed wish to grasp and hold things more permanently. Thus, infancy's natural helplessness is countered by an emerging drive toward more active dominance enabled by neurophysiological and psychological abilities to grasp and hold objects felt as possessions. The ability to say "no" emerges, colossally reinforcing the differentiation of self from another. The wish to assert power and control over the environment parallels the ability to become more independent.

Toddlers, feeling more separate, can point to themselves in a mirror and say, "I." Pointing begins at about 15 months, first as a social directive of sharing attention, then gradually becoming an imperative demand for something by 18 months.

Middle Childhood

The middle childhood developmental era spans ages 6 to 12. Team-oriented industriousness and expanded socialization pilot this time. Achievements, power versus powerlessness, and truth versus deception emerge. Possessiveness now takes on characteristically observable forms, recognizable year by year.

At age 6, there is a clear need to be first—in line or to receive a gift. Difficulty with losing or failing is prominent, and cheating is a way not to lose. Collecting behaviors, of toys and stuffed animals, are present but sporadic.

At age 7, collections become more specific and purposeful. The sense of time is also emerging, making collections longer-lasting.

Child Development Essential Reads

16 Signs of a Difficult Childhood Home Life

The Path to Strategic Unpredictability

At age 8, collections gain meaning in terms of their size. Collections may include Legos, Pokémon cards, toy cars, and dolls. Collecting is normative in childhood, but may develop into the beginnings of adult hoarding and obsessive-compulsive behaviors. Hoarding differs from collecting by being excessive, unorganized, often hidden, and comprising many non-valuable items. In hoarding, anxiety is triggered when the hoarded items are removed, misplaced, or taken away. In contrast to collecting and hoarding, obsessive-compulsive behaviors are marked by excessive anxiety that compels hoarding or excessive accumulation as a way to relieve tension.

At age 9, collections become more organized and classified. The consequences of actions and right versus wrong become prominent alongside the concepts of good versus bad. The sense of what is socially valued and sanctioned is emerging.

At age 10, collections are now preferenced according to a child's temperament and longer-lasting preferences. Stickers, rocks, stamps, and video games may be chosen.

Conclusion

The significant role of money and possessions in culture and societies is undeniable. Understanding the details of human nature helps explain a range of causes for this ubiquitous reality. Tracing development from infancy to toddlerhood to childhood is a beginning approach, however incomplete, showing an observable line of interests surrounding acquisitiveness in people. The natural line of continuity from childhood to adulthood shows the slow emergence of self-awareness and self-other boundary formation. Interspersed is a "third factor," typically with a functional or ascribed value, such as possessions, that shape relationships, notably motivating more significant activity toward the ascendency of healthy self-dependent security.