Hi there.
Shankar here.
We're hard at work on a bunch of upcoming shows, so this week we thought we'd bring you a favorite from our archives, our creature comforts show from last year.
We hope you enjoy the episode.
This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedanta.
These days, we know how important it is for young children to feel loved.
Parents are encouraged to sit with their kids, read to them, hug them, make them feel safe.
But believe it or not, this wasn't always the case.
It's so fascinating to look back on that period and think to yourself, how could you get that so wrong?
This is writer Deborah Blum.
She's looked closely at what caused the revolution in psychology around how best to parent children.
The early books told mothers not to hold their children at all if they could avoid it, that it would ruin the moral fiber of the child.
We'll hear more about the effects of loving touch and its absence.
In a moment, we turn to one of our colleagues, Alison McAdam, for a personal story about the importance of affection, touch, and attachment.
Alison is an editor at NPR, and she has a secret.
I'm just going to come out and say it.
I sleep with my blanket, my baby blanket.
Here's what it looks like.
It's white woven cotton.