CHILD-REARING CAN'T BE LEFT TO SCIENCE.(PERSPECTIVE)

Byline: CINDY SCHREUDER

Hail, science, mighty oracle.

What would it be like to touch on the moon's craggy face, we asked? You took us there on Apollo.

Desperate, we begged for an answer to smallpox, polio, diphtheria. You saved our lives when you gave us vaccines.

Could we eat tasty tomatoes in February, we pleaded? You gave us genetically altered fruit.

Ask a question, get an answer. The scientific larder overflows, so that we sometimes forget what is concealed, impossible to reveal, too subtle to detect.

Again we stand before the oracle in all of its supposed dispassion. Our faces a blend of fear and hope, we ask our most profound and provocative question: What happens to our youngest children when they spend most of their waking hours in the care of someone other than mom or dad?

Recently, the oracle spoke again: No problem.

We want to believe, but should we? On this question the oracle has been confusing.

A study in the current issue of Development Psychology has found that mothers who …