I wonder when ‘child rearing’ was relegated to a lesser role than tax-preparer. Maybe we need a new word for it. I’m proposing ‘director of development’ and I am putting it up there with medical doctor and other workers in the helping professions. I mean, the farther I went in life, the more I realized how essential motherhood is to the vitality and continuity of the human species. The mother’s heartbeat is the first language we learn. Outside the womb, the mother’s voice shapes the formation of language centers in the brain. Neuroscience informs us that the development of the brain takes place mostly outside the womb. The role of child rearing is to nurture this development. Messages conveyed by speech, touch and human interaction actually guide the growth of nerve-pathways to their destination. Without this, the human species would have become extinct a long time ago. We have to shake-off the stereotype that child rearing is somehow an unproductive activity .. little more than a burdensome ‘maternity leave’ in the workplace. Otherwise, we treat our own children like second-class citizens.