Miranda Thorpe takes us into the world of traditional child-rearing and helps us understand and appreciate the dying skill of benign toilet training with very young babies.

In 2013, together with her husband, she backpacked around Southeast Asia for over seven months, observing babies and their caregivers, and conducting over 70 interviews. As a senior psychotherapist, mother and grandmother she sensitively draws on her extensive experience and expertise to interpret her research. She concludes that this method is an invaluable asset to deeper emotional connection, better relationships and healthier living.

Miranda Thorpe works in several languages as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice in Auckland, New Zealand. Born in England, she was raised in The Gambia, Uganda, Portugal, France, and London before moving to live in Cape Town, South Africa, where she raised her six children. Miranda then immigrated with her children to New Zealand, where she married a psychologist, and together they have eight children and currently five grandchildren.