Instead of being a static one-time event, bonding is a process, a dynamic and continuous one. Thus, a reciprocal, loving attachment is still realizable even when early contact is delayed--as it is for many mothers and their prematurely born infants, or when illness of either the newborn or the mother intervenes.
Research has convincingly demonstrated that using the "rod" creates children who are not more obedient but who are instead simplymore angry and aggressive than other kids. Parents who routinely slap or strike their children are actually handing them a model of violence to imitate--and many do indeed grow to be abusive, some even murderously so.
But it is a myth to assume that the larger amount of early stimulation you provide, the more beneficial it will be. The truth is that babies can be overstimulated--which is what many parents, intent on beginning to groom their progeny for college in the cradle, end up doing.
