WritingWhat I live, what I read, what I write.
Thoughts, letters, essays and conversations about raising kids far from the place where we first learned to be someone's child.
What a Video Call Needs to Build a Bond
A study with one-year-olds confirms what I see in my daughter, and why the call can't be the only way.
Read on Substack 25 June 2026Love Doesn't Pass Down on Its Own
I watch my daughter love my mom through a video call. And still, something doesn't quite make it across.
Read on SubstackI'm not a clinical expert. I'm a mom: I read and I watch, and here I show you what I read.
The early years are for planting.
Measuring the human brain, connections between neurons rise to a peak in the first years of life; then they slowly decrease, up to adolescence.
What it doesn't say
It doesn't say that what isn't planted in time is lost forever: the brain keeps learning all life long. It says that in these years it grows fastest.
Huttenlocher & Dabholkar (1997), Journal of Comparative Neurology
Remembering strengthens more than repeating.
Bringing something to mind strengthens memory more than reading it again. After five minutes, reviewing seems better; after two days and after a week, remembering wins by far.
What it doesn't say
It was done with students and texts, not with children or family stories. We read it as a principle of how memory works, not as proof about your child.
Remembering as a family shapes who they are.
When an adult remembers alongside a child, with open questions and details, the child gains memory of their own life, language and a clearer sense of self. And when moms were taught to remember this way, their children improved.
What it doesn't say
The studies were done with moms who live with their children. That the same happens with family far away is what we believe and what we live, not something they measured.
Fivush, Haden & Reese (2006), Child Development · Reese & Newcombe (2007), Child Development
The love we inherit.