So you're having a baby. Congratulations. It's great. Welcome to the wonderful world of

parenthood. It's exhilarating, challenging, probably more than anything. It's perplexing.

Why? One word. Experts. So many experts. So much advice.

Oh, no. Dr. Oz reports. Do you ever wonder how to raise children who are continent?

Research to say nature versus nurture. Strong, parental leadership.

The first pediatrician whose book really turned into a very popular manual. Absolutely

forbid the eating of bananas. He said there were poisonous. That's Ann Holbert. She wrote a book

called Raising America. Experts, parents, and a century of advice about children.

It's fair to say that the advice has shifted a bit over time. I think the example that is

the most notorious is the behaviorist John Brottis Watson whose book The Psychological

Care of Infinite Child was a big sensation in the late 20s. He said, you know, you should never

kiss your child. You should never hug your child. You should never put your child on your knee.

You're honeycombing the child with weakness and he will not be able to face the harsh cold,

cruel world. That I think probably takes the cake. Now, now what do we know about the scientific

underpinnings of that argument? Did he, was it a scientific argument at all or no?

Well, that particular bit of wisdom, there was no scientific argument behind it at all.

He surrounded it in his book with all kinds of supposed science about the absolute

influence of parents and sort of be of your old conditioning on children. And he had a very

famous experiment of teaching a child a baby to fear a rabbit. And it was not a good experiment,

but it was cited in his book and it was sort of his example of, you know, if you

present a furry creature and a very loud noise that scares a child and you do it often enough,

you can inculcate a deep fear that will never go away. And that was kind of the sensational

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