A pediatrician who is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst undertakes in this book to reassure parents and to liberate them from the haunting fear of harming their children. This she does exhaustively with reference to planned parenthood, natural childbirth, 'rooming in', child care, and sexual education. Her approach is an attack upon a variety of 'experts' in psychology, anthropology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis, whom she scolds, reproaches and ridicules with enthusiam. Most of her strictures appear to be justified, as they are aimed at incompetence, bias, and the tendency to translate technical theory into oversimplified rules not based upon experimental proof.

This reviewer, having read several books telling the public how to care for children, approached this one with a jaundiced eye, looking for hidden hostility and sadism toward children or parents, and was delighted to be disappointed. All the author's aggression is spent against the foolish experts and so the book is an exceptionally good one for the public.