Growing children need benevolence. They need an intelligible world, one full of affordances for action and understanding. They need other human beings who love them, who love others, who love themselves; they need humans who believe in humanity. Children need benevolence like they need food and water. They need material from which to form foundational, soul-level, implicit beliefs about themselves, about human beings, about the sort of world they live in. The young child who can become benevolent—who has a deeply positive view of her relationship with the world, who starts life with both self-love and an expansive view of herself—is poised to find meaning, develop virtue, love greatly, and live a full life. A core benevolence is a foundational pillar of good character. It underwrites all thought, all action, all relationships. It’s the ultimate “secure attachment”.