Parent protection in context

S. Goldberg, J. E. Grusec, and J. M. Jenkins (1999) made a strong and interesting case for distinguishing parents' protective abilities from generalized responsiveness in the study of infant-parent attachment. The endorsement of a narrow approach in the study of attachment, however, should not occur at the expense of gaining insights about potentially complex processes underlying parent protection. Three issues are addressed in the commentary: (a) A parent's protective behavior needs to be understood in relation to a particular infant, (b) the family context needs to be examined as a backdrop for understanding parents' caretaking behavior and its effectiveness, and (c) the processes involved in the development of the infant-mother relationship may not necessarily be the same processes that underlie the development of the infant-father attachment relationship.