These days in Korea, "no kids zones" — restaurants, cafes, and other businesses that refuse entry to children below a certain age — have become a major point of social debate. If you are a parent, policies like these can feel hurtful. But you can also understand the owner's perspective: nobody enjoys being next to a child who is rolling across the floor in a tantrum while the parents sit there doing nothing. I used to be one of those people who found children's noise grating. But at some point, something changed. The sound of kids chattering and laughing with carefree abandon started to feel pleasant. When their squeals of delight drifted up from the playground through my window, I noticed a warmth spreading through me — a quiet sense of ease I had not asked for but could not deny.
In mice, a female that has never given birth actually dislikes the squeaking of other mothers' pups — and may even kill them. But a female that has experienced motherhood feels limitless affection for pups and will nurse any infant, even another mother's. In one experiment, researchers set up a button that delivered a pup to the mother's cage each time she pressed it. She pressed that button a hundred times an hour. The hormonal changes triggered by pregnancy and birth are what forge this fierce maternal drive.
A Mother's Credential: Oxytocin
The parallels in humans are striking. When mothers were shown photographs of their babies during fMRI scans, a distinctive pattern of activation appeared in their brains — lighting up the very regions that generate deep maternal love and the emotional readiness to care for a helpless infant.1
A baby who needs something does the only thing it knows how to do: cry. Hungry — it cries I am hungry. In pain — I hurt. Wet diaper — I am uncomfortable. Crying is a baby's first language, and a mother responds to it instinctively. Normally, a baby's cry activates specific regions in the mother's brain, propelling her to the child's side. But in mothers with severe postpartum depression, those regions stay silent. A baby's cry stimulates the anterior insula and the prefrontal cortex. The insula is the part of the brain that lets us experience another person's pain as if it were our own — what neuroscientists call the empathy center. It gathers signals from throughout the body and acts as a kind of conductor, orchestrating our emotional responses and directing the frontal lobe. When severe depression or drug addiction enters the picture, a mother may hear her baby cry and feel nothing. Research shows that mothers whose prefrontal cortex fails to respond to infant crying face a significantly elevated risk of child abuse. Given how often child abandonment cases appear in the news, one can reasonably suspect that those mothers' oxytocin levels were dangerously low.2
The Secret to Raising Children Well: Oxytocin
Do parents who abuse or abandon their children come from dysfunctional homes where they themselves were denied love? If so, they are victims too — caught in a cycle they never chose. The science supports this. Infant mice deprived of maternal care grow into adults with low oxytocin levels; when they have their own pups, they neglect or even kill them. Monkeys raised by human caretakers in zoos rather than by their own mothers also show diminished oxytocin. And what about children abandoned by their parents and raised in orphanages? Studies show that children from institutional care have larger amygdalae than comparison groups and far more anxious temperaments.* They carry more internalized problems; when shown photographs of frightening faces, their amygdalae blaze with activity. The neural connections between their amygdalae and frontal lobes are also weaker, which means that even when they experience negative emotions, the brain's ability to regulate those feelings is impaired.3
Parents with higher oxytocin respond to their baby's cries immediately and maintain significantly more eye contact with their children. Parents who inhale oxytocin interact more fluidly with their children and become more protective — more alert to unfamiliar people who might pose a threat. Oxytocin in the blood travels to the brain, where it amplifies affection and attentiveness toward the child.
When you step back and look at the full body of evidence, a coherent picture emerges. A mother's oxytocin during pregnancy shapes her child's social development. Couples in more intimate, loving relationships have higher oxytocin. Parents' oxytocin levels are deeply linked to their children's. And these effects ripple forward through generations, influencing how those children eventually raise their own sons and daughters. The conclusion is as clear as it is important: children raised by happy parents grow up happier, more socially capable, and more resilient in the face of life's inevitable storms.4
\* The above research was not conducted in Korea. Additionally, not all individuals raised in institutional care have enlarged amygdalae.
When we talk with someone, looking them steadily in the eye is one of the most powerful social skills we have. Imagine explaining something to a person who keeps staring at their phone or looking elsewhere — even if they are actually searching for information related to your topic, it still feels dismissive. You would think, "They are not listening to me." Oxytocin helps us look into each other's eyes and develop warmer feelings. And those who hold each other's gaze produce still more oxytocin in return — a virtuous cycle of connection. Next, let us turn to the ways oxytocin brings love into our lives.