People talked about being a parent, or being a mother or a father. We don't talk about "wiving" our husbands or "friending" our friends, or "childing" our parents. We just talk about being in a relationship with those people. You don't measure whether your marriage was good based on whether or not your husband is better now than he was 10 years ago, or whether your friend is richer than when they first became your friend. The relationships between parents and children is a kind of love, rather than a kind of work.

What happens when children reach puberty earlier and adulthood later? The answer is: a good deal of teenage weirdness.

Adults tend to think they have much free will. Kids younger than six are less sure. They may be more realistic!

The brain knows the real secret of seduction, more effective than even music and martinis. Just keep whispering, 'Gee, you are really special' to that sack of water and protein that is a body, and you can get it to do practically anything.

Developmental scientists like me explore the basic science of learning by designing controlled experiments.

The more obsessively we focus on what a particular food is going to do for us, the less healthy we've become. Simple pleasures become complicated.

The brain is highly structured, but it is also extremely flexible. It's not a blank slate, but it isn't written in stone, either.