The Gardener and the Carpenter by Alison Gopnik is a beautifully written book on the philosophy of raising children. The author likens raising children to tending a garden where you try to protect and foster growth. However, the garden will do what gardens do anyway. They grow organically and beautifully into their own colors and layout. Whereas, Gopnik compares modern-day “parenting” to carpentry. Parents and children are held to certain standards and results. Similar to how carpentry requires planning and precision to build a sturdy chair or erect a building, parents groom their babies to achieve a specific desired outcome. Gopnik opens our eyes to the fact that we need to tend to the growth of a garden and not try to build a chair.
Raising children isn’t “work”
We often treat raising children like work that will yield a specific result. When instead, we should view it as developing, maintaining and strengthening a relationship. Obviously, it’s because we want to prepare our kids as best we can for the future-at worst, a future that doesn’t include us. However, when Gopnik compares our relationship with our children to that of anyone else, it’s clear that viewing parenting as work is the wrong approach. “Just as you wouldn’t measure your marriage by its effects on your husband or wife, you also wouldn’t set aside particular activities that you directed only at them, and then measure whether those activities had the desired effect.” (So, we shouldn’t do that with our husbands then?)
Letting kids experiment and play
As a philosophy and psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Gopnik discusses some of their experiments and studies on toddler learning. It’s enlightening to see how kids acquire information based on what they observe in adults. You can also see how they separate fact from fiction. Her examples highlight the importance of modeling and the lesser importance of teaching.
When kids are given an object and shown how to get one desired result, that is all they will replicate. However, the next tester tells the kids that they don’t know how to use the object. They perform random manipulations with a confused look on their face and an unsure tone. This performance causes the kids to experiment. They carry out many different combinations of actions and figure out how to use the toy themselves. This was eye-opening and made the case for allowing children to play without showing them how to play. This example demonstrates how our actions are influencing our kids more than anything we can say to them.
“Girls can do it too”
Another instance that stuck with us is the example of saying, “girls can do it too.” It doesn’t instill the sameness that we think it implies. Even at a young age, kids sense that what’s said is that boys can undoubtedly do it, but girls can ALSO do it. The subtle distinction isn’t lost on them. So, if you’re wondering how boys get the notion that they are superior to girls, it’s in the commonly used language.
Gopnik’s book is a different kind of book on parenthood and child development. It won’t help you potty train in three days or teach you to get your kid to listen to you, but it will enlighten you. It’s part history book, part philosophy and part psychology and anthropology. It’s not immediately practical, but The Gardener and the Carpenter by Alison Gopnik is a highly recommended read because it will fling open the doors in your mind concerning your kids and how to approach your role in their life.
You can learn more about Alison Gopnik and her work at her website
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