Tamis-LeMonda-Preface

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I am indebted to my children, Brittany, Christopher, and Michael, who forever are the inspiration behind my fascination with child development. Through them, I came to understand first-hand that each child follows a unique developmental path. And I am deeply proud of the paths they each took—and continue to take— some straightforward and others marked by challeng- ing detours that define life and change. I am grateful to my husband, Richard, who has supported my career for decades; joined me in our co-juggling of family and career; and encouraged my dream to (finally) write a textbook. He put up with many headaches as I confronted the real- ity of how to find time to actually get words on the page (or 1,200 pages to be exact). Even when we took a vaca- tion, Rich was beside me on a lounge chair at the beach or looking out at the woods, as I perched my laptop on my knees to write whenever I could steal a few minutes. And as someone of Italian and Greek heritage, I have a very large family to thank. They all cheered me on even though they had no idea why I was taking so long: my wonder- ful sisters, Lisa, Jacqueline, and AnneMarie; brothers- and sisters- in-law; and nieces and nephews. My mother, who kept asking, “When in the world will your book finally be done?” passed away just before its completion, but I know her pride lives on, as does my father’s. I am indebted and forever thankful to two people who have been central to my professional development. Marc H. Bornstein, my doctoral mentor and continued colleague, introduced me to the awe of child develop- ment. Thank you for all you have done to encourage my thinking. And my dearest friend and colleague, Karen Adolph, has been by my side for over 20 years and shares with me a passion for understanding developmental pro- cesses. She continues to inspire me to think deeply about discovery science, the importance of description, and developmental cascades. Indeed, it takes a true friend and brilliant scholar to spend countless hours reading nearly every chapter, even while vacationing in Maine, and offering feedback that always bettered the science. To the extent that certain messages come alive in this book, Karen can be credited as a source of their energy. Of course, I had the fortune of working with the great- est team of supporters, the many talented individuals

at Oxford University Press who were instrumental in ensuring the book’s rigor, innovation, and successful completion. Thank you to Jane Potter, who persistently tracked me down at conferences to convince me to write this book. Although she hinted at the huge time drain the book would entail, she did not warn me enough. Still, it got done. That’s because the team at Oxford expected nothing short of excellence. I could not have been luckier landing the opportunity to work with Senior Develop- ment Editor Lisa Sussman, whose input each step of the way, across multiple chapter drafts, helped me to strike just the right balance of research depth, breadth, and readability. (Lisa, thank you for pushing me to explain complicated ideas in straightforward ways.) Thank you as well to Executive Editor Jessica Fiorillo; Media Editor Lauren Elfers; Production Editor Stephanie Nisbet; free- lance copyeditor Danna Niedzwiecki Lockwood; Edito- rial Assistants Ryan Amato and Malinda Labriola; Mar- keting Manager Joan Lewis-Milne; Marketing Assistant Ashendri Wickremasinghe; Production Manager Joan Gemme; Production Specialist and Book Designer Donna DiCarlo; Photo Research Editor Mark Siddall; Senior Pro- duction Editor Peter Lacey; Senior Production Editor of art Johannah Walkowicz; Freelance Development Edi- tor Carol Pritchard-Martinez; Permissions Supervisor Michele Beckta; Proofreader Jennifer S. Jefferson; and Tonia Cristofaro with help on various features of the book. Although I constantly lost track of who was doing what along the way, each person at Oxford displayed impressive professionalism and openness to new ideas that raised the caliber of the final product. Finally, I want to acknowledge the thousands of fami- lies and children who have participated in research at my lab at New York University and those who participate each and every day in developmental research around the world. It is an understatement to say that they are the source of every line in this book. Everything we know about children and the contexts of their development can be credited to the time that parents and children gener- ously contributed to the science of child development. Thank you for paying it forward. I hope that the knowl- edge generated by our work continues to support chil- dren and families everywhere.