Parenting & Family Quote by Penelope Leach

Leach frames infant love less as a saintly gift and more as a self-reinforcing system: “circular,” “feedback loop,” the vocabulary of mechanics and psychology smuggled into a sentence about tenderness. That word choice matters. It punctures the moralistic haze around parenting - the idea that “good” parents pour themselves out purely through willpower - and replaces it with a model that feels truer to lived experience: attachment grows through exchange.

The intent is quietly radical reassurance. If you don’t feel instantly flooded with devotion, Leach implies, you’re not broken; you’re early in the loop. Her structure mirrors the process she describes: give, get, give again, a rhythmic repetition that mimics rocking, feeding, soothing. Even the sentence moves like a cycle, with clauses chasing each other in a gentle spiral. It’s persuasion by form as much as content.

The subtext is also a defense of responsiveness in an era when childcare advice has often swung between strict schedules and “tough love.” By calling love a feedback loop, she aligns parental feeling with observable interaction: the baby smiles, settles, thrives; the caregiver feels competent and rewarded; care becomes easier to offer. That’s attachment theory translated into plain language, with the sting removed. It acknowledges that exhaustion and affection can coexist, and that nurture isn’t just altruism - it’s relational chemistry.

Contextually, this sits in late-20th-century parenting discourse that tried to normalize the messier realities of mothering and early bonding, especially against expectations of instant maternal instinct. Leach’s line makes intimacy sound earned, iterative, and human.