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So says the absolutely legendary Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, who is professor emerita at the University of California-Davis. A former Guggenheim fellow, she has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the California Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. Her books include The Woman Who Never Evolved, which was selected by the New York Times as one of 1981’’s Notable Books of the Year, Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species, which won the Howells Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Biological Anthropology and was chosen by both Publisher’s Weekly and Library Journal as one of the “Best Books of 1999"; and Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding, which is an exploration of psychological implications of humankind’s long legacy of shared child-rearing which has been awarded both the 2012 J.I. Staley Prize from the School of Advanced Research and a second Howells Prize.

Hrdy gave us the term “allomother” and by extension, “alloparent”—the pioneering idea that mutual care is the reason we’ve evolved to be the humans we are today. Through provisioning our kin and the rest of our tribes, we gave birth to modern culture and civilization today. In her brand-new book, Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies, Sarah goes deep on the structure of the brain and the way it’s turned on by engagement with babies—regardless of whether you are a woman or a man. This book is stunning and everyone should read it.

Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies

Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding

Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species

The Woman Who Never Evolved

Sarah Blaffer Hrdy’s Website

SARAH:

You and I have so much in common, Elise, you're kind of Buddhist without the self abnegation.