This paper examines infant-mother attachment and its alleged significance for personality and social development. There is now a great deal of evidence that the significance given to this attachment is not warranted.
Infants normally develop attachments to more than one person.
They are active participants in their interactions with other persons. The infant s and young child s interpersonal world is both broader and more complex than is usually acknowledged. The ideology of motherhood persists to the detriment of fathering, shared parenting in family and cooperative situations, and caretaking in child-care facilities. Robert A.C. Stewart , PhD, Editor Soc. for Personality Research. P.O.Box 1539, Palmerston North 5331, New Zealand.