Judith Woods and the wunderkind

This line from columnist Judith Woods has recently been widely quoted: ' "every time a friend's child succeeds, I feel something so unpleasant that there isn't an actual word for it, not even in German".' It's a funny line, and just about everyone knows what she's talking about, so of course it was taken out of context.To me though it's even more fun in context. It's from a Daily Telegraph piece (15 November 2014) entitled 'Teach our children well - but not too well'. Woods starts by listing examples of wunderkind achievements, with due praise all around. But there do seem to be awful lot of these amazing children nowadays, she feels and, what's worse, they're always 'other people's kids'. These children who-are-not-one's own are a such a contrast to life 'in the real world', she writes, that 'it's hard not to feel a jolt of envy, shot through with irritation and wrapped up in a bin-liner of self-reproach.'  Then comes the quoted line. The context reveal it to be, in fact, a comic spin on a famously  pusillanimous line from Gore Vidal: Woods fears that if these 'pint-sized high achievers' are indeed 'proliferating at an unnatural rate', then 'Gore Vidal's "every time a friend succeeds, a little part of me dies" should be updated to "every time a friend's child [etc]." ' The quoted line from Woods is a parody rather than a straight confession, and all the cleverer for it. Beyond that though, for anyone who's curious about language, the question arises: is there such a word? The 'even in German' quip suggests Woods is thinking of Schadenfreude, a delight in someone else's misfortune. Is there a word for a double antonym of Schadenfreude that would mean 'irritation' or worse at someone else's good fortune or achievement? A quick internet search reveals other people have asked the same question, and that apparently there is one: Glückschmerz (pain/sorrow at someone's good luck). Maybe the clue as to why Woods feels there's no word for this even in German is in the 'envy' she mentions earlier. Envy puts the matter squarely under the heading of the tenth Commandment, 'You shall not covet' (Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5). But the further details of the tenth do not mention children - you shall not covet 'your neighbour's house, wife, field, male servant, female servant, ox, donkey, or anything that is your neighbour's' - no children. It's as if being covetous of anything to do with your neighbour's ('or 'friend's') children is so beyond the pale it's not even worth recording in Scripture as a likely possibility. And yet, who hasn't been tempted by this envy, even fleetingly? Obviously the thing to do is give any such fleeting temptation a good old kick in the pants, and remain grateful in every way for the children you've been entrusted to bring up. It does show, however, how disturbing sin is, really. The reason God could distill the main Commandments to just ten is not because there are so few that matter, but because, as Jesus so often taught, each of those Commandments encompasses far more that we care to look at too closely.