Comment by quadragenarian

This is 100% accurate.

In the wise words of the late child psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner, Professor Emeritus of Human Development and Psychology at Cornell:

In order to develop – intellectually emotionally, socially and morally – a child requires participation in progressively more complex reciprocal activity on a regular basis over an extended period in the child's life, with one or more persons with whom the child develops a strong, mutual, irrational, emotional attachment and who is committed to the child's well-being and development, preferably for life. (Bronfenbrenner, 1991, p. 2)

Or paraphrased by him:

“Every child needs at least one adult who is irrationally crazy about him or her.”