I am a strange and usual creature: a full-time stay-at-home mom with an infant baby. Like a few of my other friends, I have left a demanding career to take up the most important challenge of my life: caring for my infant baby.

And like the liberated women thirty years ago, who had the courage to demand an equal right for fulfilling employment and equity under the law, we are pioneers too -- liberating ourselves from the intense pressures of our society to have high-powered successful careers and choosing instead to stay home to care for our children. It is one of the greatest crimes of modern civilization that the job of caring for children is so undervalued. And at a time when society at large undermines parenting and devalues child care providers -- they are some of the least paid and often least educated members of the work force -- we stay-at-home moms relinquish our very identities to do a job we believe will impact our children's lives and the future of our world.

We share a recognition of the lucky circumstances which enable us to afford to choose to care for our children full-time. We also acknowledge how fortunate we (and our children) are that we are emotionally capable of doing this intensive and joyful work full time. My friends have Master degrees and MBAs; they were a landscape architect, a teacher, an investment banker, a physician -- all successful; all moving up the career and economic ladder. Yet somehow they decided to forgo their jobs or suspend their careers, and take reductions in their family incomes, to be with their children full-time.

But we are in the minority. Most parents do not have that option for financial reasons and for others the allure of the working world far outweighs the appeal of staying home. Many are not convinced of the value of staying home and devoting themselves to the needs of a very young child. "I'd go crazy staying home all day. After all, infants just eat, sleep, and cry, right?" one professional woman said. The women's movement has done a remarkable job of giving women the choice of having a career, staying home, or doing both. But this way of thinking has put tremendous pressure on women of my generation to value themselves more by their professional accomplishments. After all, "What do you do" is the first question we ask as we get to know someone. And, unfortunately, the answer: "I take care of babies" does not often elicit an affirming response.

At a luncheon for new mothers recently I met the mother of a four-week old who planned to go back to work after two months and hire a nanny to care for her infant. Although she was entitled to take three month's leave, she said "What difference does one month make?" There is a real difference between leaving him at two months then at three." I said. I think it was the first time she heard someone argue in favor of staying with her baby. "But I don't want him to get too attached...." she said. She thought she was protecting her child from the pain of the inevitable separation when ultimately she would leave. Yet, what she failed to realize was the significance of those early weeks for her child's development, not to mention the contribution that precious time would make to the richness in their relationship as a newborn/mother couple.

Our society at large tends to applaudthis women's choice. Or at least to be very supportive of it. The loudest voices seem to say "if Mommy is happy, baby is happy." "If you are satisfied, your baby is satisfied." " If you don't meet your own needs first, you will not be able to meet your child's needs." Have we come so far in the celebration of the individual that we have foregone the blessings and benefits of giving fully to another human being? Have we worked so hard for the right to our independence that we are afraid to loose our identity if we subsume our needs for that of the newly born?

Yet, the degree to which the infants' needs are met affect their physical health, their mental health, their personality, their emotional life, and their capacity to love and learn; to thrive and be. A 1996 Conference on Brain Development in Young Children drew national attention to the determining nature of the first three years of life for brain development in the child. As the November/December issue of the Child Care Action News stated, "a child's experience in his or her first weeks, months, and years of life determine how that child will function from the preschool years through adolescence, and even into adulthood....A child's early experiences and interactions with the world around him (/her) actually affect the physiological development of his(/her) brain."

In January, the news entered the mainstream when Time magazine featured an article about the importance of the first years of life for the development of the human brain. The article is a critical step is raising the consciousness of parents and the public at large as to why we must secure the maximum quality care to children in their first years of life -- whether it is provided by parents, a nanny or a child care center. But little has been said as to what quality care really should look like if we are to maximize the development and growth of a healthy child.

Penelope Leach wrote her book Your Baby and Child from Birth to Age Five because she "believed that the more people knew about children in general, the more fascinating they would find their own child in particular." I have found this to be true for myself in terms of understanding and appreciating my daughter, Sarah; and I am eager to see more of this information available and absorbed by the public. Books like What to Expect the First Year, by Arlene Eisenberg, Heidi E. Murkoff, and Sandee E. Hathaway, are helping in this process, and publications such as this one will make all the difference.

I keep a number of child development books at my bedside. One I find particularly useful is The First Twelve Months of Life, by the Princeton Center for Infancy and Early Childhood, Frank Caplan, founder. This book has monthly growth charts that outline language, motor, mental, and social development with clear descriptions and explanations, which help me focus in on what to look for as Sarah grows and changes every day -- as she stretches and arches her back while laying on her tummy on her sheepskin mat; grabs and swats at the cloth birds I have hanging above her changing table; thumps her feet on the hardwood floor; puts anything she can -- from her smallest wooden rattle to the largest cloth ball she can hold -- in her mouth; screeches with delight when she sees herself in the mirror or hums softly as I walk her in the stroller.

But while more information is now available than ever before -- through books, magazines, videos, even the -- the basic information about the importance of the first three years of life and what it means for the child's growth, development, and future -- as well as for the future of our society, and the kind of people who will be the politicians, teachers, police persons, judges, cab drivers, shop keepers, etc., who will live in, work in, and, in fact, determine that society -- is not widely discussed or even accepted. As Leach says, we spend far more of our resources on producing physically healthy newborns than we do on insuring their development into emotionally stable children. If we did, our society would look very different.

More parents would choose to stay home, stay home longer, or work out of their home. Businesses would give longer leaves of absence. Child care providers would be paid better. Politicians would increase -- rather than decrease -- the money for publicly funded child care programs. The marketplace would offer equipment, toys, and materials for infants and toddlers that were truly designed to meet their needs. Parents would want their nannies and child care professionals to receive formal educational training in a "curriculum" specifically designed for the infant and the toddler. And parents might even want to take such training themselves.

In 1995, I had the pleasure and fortune of attending such a training session, at the Center for Montessori Teacher Education/NY summer institute. The five week course was taught by Virginia Varga, one of the leaders of infant and toddler education in this country. The student body consisted primarily of professional child care providers; but there were also a few parents in the group. Over the course of five weeks we came to understand how important the role of the adult is in the child's life because children absorb the attitudes, characteristics, personality traits, speech habits and mannerisms of the adults who relate to them. Since the adults truly have such impact, I gained a new found respect for the people who care for the little ones, and developed a deep desire to be that primary person for my daughter, Sarah.

Montessori demonstrated that the adult influences how the children come to think about themselves and the world at large. Our ways of interacting, words, tone of voice, timing, and approach to the child affect the child from the moment s/he is born. In addition, we learned how the toys, furniture and equipment we choose for children foster or thwart their emotional, cognitive, and physical development. The Montessori approach offers concrete tools and techniques, as well as a basic philosophy of respecting the young child, that support the development of basic trust and assist the unfolding of the child's emerging personality.

President Clinton's recent address calls attention to the need for improved educational opportunities at the high school and college level. He is missing the point. For in order to take advantage of higher learning, one needs to have had a nourishing beginning. We know, now, that emotions are a kind of intelligence and that our emotional capacity is shaped along with our intellect as our brain develops. The first three years will affect a child's ability to learn, to concentrate, to feel secure, to have a sense of trust. As a nation, if we want better students and better citizens, we should shift our emphasis and our resources to offer the maximum -- not the minimum -- opportunities for today's youngest children. This mean empowering mothers and fathers to make the choice to stay home and care for their children themselves if they can, and to help educate them and other caregivers to understand and meet the complex needs of the children of this very young age. People who take care of infants should be specialists in this area not just loving adults.

"I can't expect my nanny to take as good care of my child as I can," a friend said, recently. We want nannies and child care providers to love our children, although we don't expect them to love our children as much as we do. But, surely, we should expect the adults who do the most important work of our future nation to do it exceptionally well. This can only happen if we as a society understand the profound value of the work with the little ones, and if parents, nannies, and child care professionals -- our infant and toddler specialists -- are empowered to accept the challenge of that work by having the knowledge, skills, enthusiasm, and respect for the individual child that makes this work so joyful and gratifying.

It is my deep hope that this magazine will make that information commonplace in the market of ideas so that Sarah can live in a society that respects infants and welcomes and supports their presence, value, and contribution to our lives by honoring, empowering, and educating the people who care for them.

K.T. Korngold lives in New York City, with her husband, Michael Whaley. Their daughter, Sarah Korngold Whaley, was born this past September. K.T. received her B.A. in 1985 from Wesleyan University, where she majored in English. She received her Masters Degree from Columbia University Writing Division in 1990. In 1995, she attended the Center for Montessori Teacher Education/NY Infant and Toddler Program. K.T. has published articles about infants and toddlers in Montessori Life magazine. She wrote this article at home in the afternoons, while Sarah napped.