We now recognize that abuse and neglect may be as frequent in nuclear families as love, protection, and commitment are in nonnuclear families.

Decades of research has shown that play is crucial to physical, intellectual, and social-emotiona l development at all ages. This is especially true of the purest form of play: the unstructured, self-motivated, imaginative, independent kind, where children initiate their own games and even invent their own rules.

Play is not only our creative drive; it's a fundamental mode of learning.

In leading-edge companies like Google and Apple, workers are given much freedom and opportunity to play. They know that's an important component of creating new and better products. I believe that at whatever level of work, cashier at a supermarket, janitor at an airport, aide in a cubicle, the addition of a playful attitude makes the job better and the work more enjoyable. A cashier or janitor who smiles and is friendly gets a better response than a surly one.

There's enough evidence that variation in sexual orientation is more a function of genes than of environment and for that reason alone, it should be accepted as but another example of human variability.

Children in the 21st (century) have been transformed from net producers of their own toy and play culture, to net consumers of play culture imposed by adults.

Infants and young children are not just sitting twiddling their thumbs, waiting for their parents to teach them to read and do math. They are expending a vast amount of time and effort in exploring and understanding their immediate world. Healthy education supports and encourages this spontaneous learning.