It seemed that no one was doing a very good job of parenting (McCain & Mustard, 1999). Children’s literacy development, in the context of a human capital investment, became intricately connected to normal brain development, and, recruiting nineteenth-century and earlier twentieth-century discourses, of happiness, morality, and emotional security as well. There was remarkable uniformity in messages promoting the connections between literacy and brain development across commercial, government, and non-governmental organizations in their public education, and commercial marketing campaigns that “the early years last forever” (CICH, 1997, p. 1). Childhood and parenting and family relationship in the home became all about literacy and brain “wiring.” In a pamphlet written by Mary Gordon and the Roots of Empathy Foundation, parents were reminded that they “play a powerful role in wiring a baby’s brain for learning: “From a child’s first breath to the first day of kindergarten, loving relationships are the best teachers … This learning sets the stage for success in school and life” (Gordon, 2003, p. 2).

Along with recommendations to parents that they play, celebrate, listen to, and love their children, was the need to read: “Read with your arms lovingly wrapped around your child. Reading this way stimulates many of the child’s senses, including the sense of touch. The more senses that are used in learning, the deeper that learning will be” (Gordon, 2003, p. 5). Certainly love and affection are central to children’s well-being and it is hard to imagine that parents would need to be told to love their children. This advice suggests not only that reading had become intimately connected to attachment parenting practices and a literacy habitus embedded in the discourse of intensive mothering, but that many institutions believed that homes were not loving, and did not value literacy.

Attachment parenting was the concept underpinning the Sears and Sears (2002) child raising manual, The Successful Child: What Parents Can Do to Help Kids Turn Out Well. This latest addition to the Sears’ parenting library was a response to a new social concern: “Are Kids Today Successful?” The book was one of the first parenting manuals to integrate the findings of early brain research into parenting advice. “Being smart” was one of ten qualities of a successful child, according to Sears and Sears, along with “a joyful attitude,” “being kind and polite,” “having a healthy attitude toward sexuality,” and so on. The chapter dedicated to how to “give your child a smart start” began with a review of recent brain research. They asked the question, “Why are some brains smarter than others?” and conclude that two aspects most associated with ‘smart brains’ — “how fast messages travel from one nerve to another, and how well connected these nerves are” (p. 53) — were directly associated with practices associated with attachment parenting.