When a child is born healthy, it is a potential genius, postulated László Polgár in 1992, the author of ‘Bring Up Genius’ and father of the famous chess sisters. Sigmund Freud was the first to attribute to childhood its overwhelming importance for the rest of later life. Children are not simply smaller adults, a fact engraved ever deeper in our collective consciousness since the 20th century. Development psychology with an emphasis on childhood and youth has rightly become a comprehensive discipline. Perfectionism has become increasingly prevalent throughout society, possibly because of rapidly growing possibilities - a specific drive to improve, alongside the image of people as ‘defective beings’ earmarked for enhancement - for improvement or increase in value. This pressure to improve is affecting the future of our society and thus has the potential to change it permanently. In fact, it is actually sensible for parents to seek psychological help when they are overwhelmed themselves. What happens, though, when it isn’t health that is at issue, but specific disorders which are socially acceptable, even desirable? Does not the obsessive neurotic have certain advantages in working life? Don’t top managers possess psychopathic traits? And wouldn’t a compulsively clean child be more pleasant than constant chaos? If the perfect psychological disorder proves to be more lucrative than mental health, won’t a perfectionist society develop to the point of utter absurdity?