The best scientific way to discover if one factor influences another is to do a controlled experiment.

Philosophers and psychologists have long puzzled over the question of how we know as much as we do despite our limited experiences. One way is to see how children learn. Another example is consciousness. The concept is usually explored by armchair academics. Looking at kids expands our conceptions of consciousness.

Instead of just saying, "I love my baby and I pick him up because he's adorable and it's so nice to cuddle with him," we practice attachment parenting. We let our children play outside and have age-appropriate freedoms and are labeled free-range parents.

Being a grandmother is a wonderful thing, so my advice is skip the children. Go straight to the grandchildren.

Caring, whether for children or the dying, shouldn't be instrumental. It should be an intrinsic, moral good.

Babies and young children are like the research and development division of the human species, and we grown-ups are production and marketing.

We don't measure the quality of our other relationships by how well the other person turns out, for instance whether my husband is a better person after 10 years than he was when I first met him.