 Finally, in dominant conceptions of the self, no one seems to be born and raised, for caregivers and birth mothers are driven offstage (Irigaray 1985b; Baier 1987; Code 1987; Held 1987; Willett 1995 and 2001; Kittay 1999; LaChance Adams and Lundquist 2012). The self appears to materialize on its own with a starter set of basic physical desires and rational skills. No one’s powers ever seem to deteriorate or change in different contexts. Since dependency and vulnerability are denied, all affiliations are assumed to be freely chosen, and all transactions freely negotiated. The repudiation of caregiving underwrites the voluntaristic illusion of independence that characterizes the Kantian ethical subject and homo economicus—and it is no coincidence here that caregiving has traditionally been women’s work. Alternative virtues, such as care, love, tenderness, spontaneity, and interdependence are registered as defeats for the “Man with the Plan” rather than aspects of resilient selfhood and a fluid sense of agency (Baier 1987; Koziej 2019). The mother cultivating a “social erotic” between herself and her infant through the dance of affect attunements (Willett 1995 and 2001), like the lover embracing the unexpected, transgress rigid modern norms of selfhood.