A Mother's Love

French babies cry differently from babies who've heard German in the womb, because they've absorbed French intonations before birth. Fetuses who have been read "The Cat in the Hat" while in the womb suck rhythmically when they hear it again after birth, because they recognize the rhythm of the poetry. A baby connects with his mother. Gazing at her, he mimicks. His brain is wired by her love (for example, the more a rat pup is licked and groomed by its mother, the more synaptic connections it has). A baby's mother, in return, reads his moods. A wordless conversation develops between mother and child based on touch, gaze, smell, rhythm, and imitation. The baby soon develops models in his head of how to communicate with people and how to use others as tools for his own learning. Thanks to his mom's attunement, he becomes confident that if he sent a signal it would be received. Later in life, his sense of security enables him to go out and explore the world. Researchers at the University of Minnesota can look at attachment patterns of children at forty-two months and predict with seventy-seven percent accuracy who will graduate from high school. Men who had unhappy childhoods are three times as likely to be solitary at age 70. Early experiences don't determine a life, but they set pathways, which can be changed or reinforced by later experiences.

--Excerpted and paraphrased rom "Social Animal" by David Brooks, "The New Yorker," January 17.