Millions of years

It has taken millions of years for humans to reach the physical, mental, emotional and social development we are at today. This has not happened by having infants develop by themselves in isolation. It has happened by having a very close nurturing relationship between mother and child. If the mother is removed from the process or is not a nurturing, caring parent, development in all these areas becomes different. The child becomes a different kind of human being than he or she might have been.

Humans have been able to invent machines and develop ways to keep infants alive when in the past they would have died. By doing this, in some cases we have removed the need for natural mothering. This does not mean that the infant is a separate individual. It may look that way -- sleeping alone in a hospital nursery for example.

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