This is my second reading of this superlative book that should be required reading for all who have or work with children. There is magic in this book as it articulates the magic that goes on between mother and infant. Briefly, human brains are too big to grow inside the womb, so development takes place once baby is born. The catalyst and regulator of that growth is the loving interplay between baby and mother, a process known as limbic regulation. Modern parenting practices (bottle feeding, ... (show more)

This is my second reading of this superlative book that should be required reading for all who have or work with children. There is magic in this book as it articulates the magic that goes on between mother and infant. Briefly, human brains are too big to grow inside the womb, so development takes place once baby is born. The catalyst and regulator of that growth is the loving interplay between baby and mother, a process known as limbic regulation. Modern parenting practices (bottle feeding, separate sleeping, school before seven) disrupt that process and impair our children's neurological development, thus diminishing their emotional potential; their capacity to care; their capacity to love, and to think.
What I found revolutionary about this book is how it uses latest advances in brain science to confirm what should be self-evident: that we are mammals, and it is for us parents to look after our children as nature intended, and not farm them away to genetic strangers. Love has evolved for a reason, and that and thermogenesis is what distinguishes us from reptiles. Messing with the attachment process is as absurd and anti-nature as messing with our mammalian capacity to generate our own body heat.

Wht (show less)