This presentation makes the case that the role of evolution has been rather neglected when it comes to contemporary thinking about child development, especially with respect to “nurture”, the effects of early-life experiences on development. So this talk emphasizes the need to keep in mind not just genetics, which are well studied, in terms of their developmental effects, but the fundamental evolutionary  goal of all living things, the passing on of genes to future generations. This focus puts reproduction as central to what development is all about.  In consequence, theoretical and, just as importantly, evidentiary cases are made for rethinking why, how, and for whom nurture early in life shapes later development. Specifically, two evolutionary hypotheses are advanced and research testing what might be regarded as long-shot and uncanny predictions are presented. The first predicts that early-life adversity should accelerate pubertal development, as this would increase the chances of passing on genes before one dies or becomes developmentally compromised. The second predicts that children should vary in their susceptibility to their early-life experiences, for better and for worse. This implies that some children will be more susceptible than others to both the negative effects of adversity AND the beneficial effects of support and enrichment. The evidence presented challenges the risk-resilience framework that is focused on vulnerability and resilience in the face of adversity, while failing to consider whether children are similarly susceptible to supportive life conditions and negative ones. Ultimately, two concluding claims are made. First, we have long and misguidedly, even if for humanitarian reasons, presumed that nature intended children to grow up to be secure, autonomous, achievement striving and capable of establishing and sustaining close relationships. While this is a likely outcome under favorable developmental conditions, it is less so under unfavorable ones. The resulting effects of adversity on psychological and biological development do not simply reflect dysfunction, dysregulation or even disorder, as so long presumed, but strategic—and evolved—developmental responses to the anticipated future based on childhood conditions. But because the future is uncertain, regulating development in response to early-life conditions will not always pay off when it comes to passing on genes, so children will vary in their tendency to be shaped by early-life experiences. In essence, nature has hedged its bets with respect to how susceptible children are to the effects of nurture: High susceptibility should prove reproductively strategic when childhood and later-life conditions are in line with each other, whereas it should not when a mismatch occurs, such that early life is not an accurate prognosticator of later life. Under these conditions, not being so developmentally plastic holds the promise of being more reproductively successful, or at least once did. Even if the evolved developmental processes no longer affect the passing on of genes in the modern, contracepting world as they did in the past, the machinery guiding development still functions as it once did.