There are some experiences that bring about decisive changes in your professional life: mine was to encounter Anthony J. Raimondi, professor at the Northwestern University of Chicago, the man who had the principal role in the birth and development of pediatric neurosurgery around the world. The Chicago Children’s Memorial Hospital, together with the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, was at that time the cradle of this new discipline. I spent 2 years there when the International Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery was created to foster the progress of this new subspecialty around the world. These were years when it was possible to share the energy and enthusiasm of colleagues who were more experienced than me and destined to become giants in the discipline. They shared experiences and a common goal to improve the care of children with neurosurgical diseases. Just to name a few of them: Maurice Choux from France (who has since then become my best friend), Satoshi Matusumoto from Japan, Harold Hoffman and Robin Humphreys from Canada, and Louis Schut and Fred Epstein from the United States. The statement by Raimondi that “The child is not a little adult” became a sort of mantra for all those neurosurgeons around the world who chose to be pediatric neurosurgeons, when confronting the neurosurgeons working in general neurosurgery.