ABSTRACT
The combination of historical texts on child-care, such as Filde's, Boswell's and Gaythorne-Hardy's as well as the use of literary descriptions and biographical accounts, which have been put alongside recent research on attachment and neurology, allow a new appreciation of the crucial importance that should be given to present day child-care arrangements. Busy mothers and fathers, in the 'First World', cannot afford to look after their own children and keep their jobs, so they buy in child-care from mothers from impoverished areas like the Philippines. Aulus Gellius observation is that, if the child has a wet nurse, the child will become emotionally distanced from the mother and the mother will fail to bond with her child because people 'destroy the foundations of natural affection'. Suchet suggested that the re-finding of lost relationships is made possible through the dialectical relationship between therapist and patient.
