This is anthropologist Sarah Hrdy’s radical proposition. All over the world, mothers are known to admit that it takes time for them to fall in love with their babies, while some never do. In some unfortunate cases, mothers deliberately neglect and even kill their newborns. This may seem utterly unnatural. After all, we assume that the maternal instinct is as strong and immediate in humans as it is in any other creature. It’s considered a fundamental part of being a woman. So much so that those who don’t want children or reject their own are often considered odd, or even evil. But the reality,
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