Hello, I'm Mary Portis and this is The Kindness Economy, a podcast that looks at the new values driving the businesses of tomorrow.

People, planet and profit in that order. It's the future. Are you ready for better?

We've come a long way in our understanding of the human brain. And one of those areas that it has most influenced is

how we raise our children. Even just 20 years ago, sorry Milo, I remember doing this, we were told

as parents to leave our children crying in order to learn to settle by themselves. And we now

understand, however, that touch is critical to children's

ability to thrive. Orphanages have higher infant mortality rates. The children

living in them have been found to experience neurological changes that only

start to slow down or reverse when they experience loving connection. Without a

touch a baby will literally fail to thrive.

As sophisticated as we human beings are, we're also at-root animals that as well as food,

water and shelter need vital, physical and emotional connection. On a collective level too,

we experience this kind of critical impulse to connect.

And sadly, it's been so frustrated for so many of us

during the pandemic.

If only now, well, we are only now,

beginning to negotiate life more freely.

And for many, this is fraught with anxiety.

We've experienced a collective trauma, and we need to heal.

The Office for National Statistics reports that 16 to 24-year-olds are more lonely than pensioners.

It makes me really sad.

And the problem is such that the government has

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