Time to Update the Research?

Maybe you heard about the "monkey mother" research from the 1950s--where scientist Harry Harlow gave newborn rhesus monkeys a wire "mother" that held a bottle, and a terry cloth "mother" that did not. The infant monkeys spent many hours cuddling the soft "mother" approaching the wire one only for food.

This was a remarkable rebuttal to the childcare experts of the time who warned that children must not be cuddled, or picked up when they cried, at the risk of spoiling them. This may have been the start of science of touch, and the root of such current practices as "kangaroo care" and placing a newborn on the mother immediately after birth to allow them to bond.

This, however, scares me. It looks like Harlow's research all over again. You know, sometimes it's just as well my kids are much older--I'm not sure I'd want to have these lying around my house.