We can’t expect infants and children not to have these needs simply because they are inconvenient for us to meet. The cost of ignoring them is too great. As Erica Komisar points out, “We want to eradicate mental health issues like depression, anxiety, and violence in children and young adults, but we don’t really want to look too deeply at the root of the problem.”15 If we look too closely, major changes would be required of us to remedy systemic issues of parental leave and misogynistic life forces that objectify and dis-empower women.
