Erica Komisar

American psychoanalyst and author whose Being There argues that maternal presence in the first three years of life is the single most important factor in child emotional development — advocating for extended maternity leave and against early daycare based on neuroscience and attachment theory.

Makes the most direct and evidence-grounded case for maternal presence in early childhood — drawing on neuroscience of infant brain development, cortisol stress research, and attachment theory — in a cultural context that tends to dismiss such arguments as anti-feminist.