The First Teachers: Ancient Stories and Modern Research on Bonds That Shape a Life

Most books on parenting tell you what to do. Most books on mythology 
keep their distance. The First Teachers does neither. It observes. 
It places stories from the Sanskrit epics, the Upanishads, Homer, the 
Norse tradition, and the Hebrew scriptures alongside findings from 
attachment theory, developmental psychology, and neuroscience, and 
lets the reader notice what is already known. The ancient stories and the 
modern research are not offered as explanations of each other. They 
illuminate the same territory from different centuries and different 
methods. 
Ten chapters, ten recurring patterns in the parent-child relationship — 
the parent whose love blinds them, the child whose gifts exceed the 
household’s compass, the truth a mother carries — each traced through 
story, history, and research. 
For the reader who has been a child, is now a parent, and noticed that 
the distance between those two experiences is both larger and smaller 
than expected.