The New Science of Motherhood | Science | Smithsonian Magazine

"These are all heavy hints that what’s transpiring within our brains is just as extreme as our external makeover. Over the course of a few short months, our brains are abruptly renovated, causing us to reinterpret familiar stimuli—a stranger’s face, or the color red, or the smell of a tiny T-shirt—in freaky new ways. Suddenly a child’s smile is our alpha and omega. Our old systems of desire have been rewired.

The most striking change in motherhood isn’t about how we look on the outside. It’s about how we see."