ABSTRACT

At the close of the twentieth century in the United States of America, the greatest threat to healthy development that very young children experience may arise from failures in their relationships with adult caregivers. Several decades of research strongly suggest that children need “at least one person who is crazy about them” in order to make full use of their own gifts, explore what the world has to offer, and overcome the vicissitudes that life will throw in their way. Large numbers of babies and toddlers in this country do not form stable, nurturing relationships with their parents. Many very young children experience disruption and loss— sometimes repeatedly—in their relationships with important caregivers during the earliest years of life. Separation and bereavement are hardly new in human history, but during the past half-century transformations in many domains of economic and family life have profoundly altered both the quality and the quantity of children’s experiences with adults in their earliest years. We can still only guess what effects these changes are having on the development of particular groups of children or upon whole generations of citizens.