looking for specific short story, possibly from 1950s or 1960s, baby first superhuman

Plot involves two parents with a baby. They are visited by time travellers from the future who tell them the baby becomes like a god in the future, the first superhuman. I think the name of the baby was Alexander.

The time travellers are here at their future leaders request, to begin his education while still a baby. The parents get increasingly stressed out as their baby / then toddler learns psionic abilities but acts like a normal baby.

Teleports the mother into a shop to buy him candy while she is not dressed. Shakes the father upside down to make coins fall from his pocket when he claims to have no money.

Eventually the child goes too far with some strange equipment left by his instructors, and he suddenly vanishes, never to return. The parents are relieved as life had become so difficult. Apparently the whole future time line has been wiped out.

Answer

This is When the Bough Breaks, a short story from 1944 by "Lewis Padgett", the joint pseudonym of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore. The plot is as described - Joe and Myra Calderon have their life taken over by time-travelers who want to educate their son Alexander so he'll grow up to be an even better superhuman than he already is, but the young Alexander ends up doing something that eradicates the future timeline he was to rule.

Comments

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