The phrase “parents are children’s first teachers” has always concerned me because parenting is distinct from teaching in many ways. They are not opposites! Certainly, parents do teach their children many important things, and teachers of young children do sometimes provide parental kinds of care and concern for the children they teach. For example, it is appropriate for a mother to demand good care for her child and to have strong emotions about the care her child receives and about promoting her child’s interests. It is likewise appropriate for a teacher to make her own knowledge, skills, and care equally accessible to every child in the class. Teachers are to be optimally rational, whereas mothers or parents are to be optimally emotional, biased in favor of their own children. As Urie Bronfenbrenner once said, “No one in his right mind would become a parent”!                                                                                                                                   Lilian Katz