In 2019, not long after giving birth to her first son, Marissa Vahlsing began hearing from friends anxious to pass on the name of someone they promised would change her experience of motherhood. These friends were people she knew from different jobs, schools and social circles, and they were scattered across the US. But they were united in two ways: they were all highly educated parents living in coastal cities, and they shared the belief they had uniquely discovered this person themselves.
The person they were nuts about was a former actress turned parenting expert named Janet Lansbury, a disciple of a Hungarian-born early childhood educator named Magda Gerber. In the 1970s, Gerber had founded Resources for Infant Educarers, a Los Angeles-based organisation promoting the simple belief that infants should be treated with respect.
Lansbury brought the idea to the mainstream through her popular Unruffled podcast and two books, No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame and Elevating Child Care: A Guide to Respectful Parenting, in which she applies the philosophy not just to babies but to toddlers and older children as well.