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The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children
One of the world's leading child psychologists shatters the myth of "good parenting"
Caring deeply about our children is part of what makes us human. Yet the thing we call "parenting" is a surprisingly new invention. In the past thirty years, the concept of parenting and the multibillion dollar industry surrounding it have transformed child care into obsessive, controlling, and goal-oriented labor intended to create a particular kind of child and therefore a particular kind of adult. In The Gardener and the Carpenter, the pioneering developmental psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik argues that the familiar twenty-first-century picture of parents and children is profoundly wrong--it's not just based on bad science, it's bad for kids and parents, too.
Drawing on the study of human evolution and her own cutting-edge scientific research into how children learn, Gopnik shows that although caring for children is profoundly important, it is not a matter of shaping them to turn out a particular way. Children are designed to be messy and unpredictable, playful and imaginative, and to be very different both from their parents and from each other. The variability and flexibility of childhood lets them innovate, create, and survive in an unpredictable world. “Parenting" won't make children learn—but caring parents let children learn by creating a secure, loving environment.
Caring deeply about our children is part of what makes us human. Yet the thing we call "parenting" is a surprisingly new invention. In the past thirty years, the concept of parenting and the multibillion dollar industry surrounding it have transformed child care into obsessive, controlling, and goal-oriented labor intended to create a particular kind of child and therefore a particular kind of adult. In The Gardener and the Carpenter, the pioneering developmental psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik argues that the familiar twenty-first-century picture of parents and children is profoundly wrong--it's not just based on bad science, it's bad for kids and parents, too.
Drawing on the study of human evolution and her own cutting-edge scientific research into how children learn, Gopnik shows that although caring for children is profoundly important, it is not a matter of shaping them to turn out a particular way. Children are designed to be messy and unpredictable, playful and imaginative, and to be very different both from their parents and from each other. The variability and flexibility of childhood lets them innovate, create, and survive in an unpredictable world. “Parenting" won't make children learn—but caring parents let children learn by creating a secure, loving environment.
320 pages, ebook
First published August 9, 2016
About the author
Alison Gopnik
28 books197 followersAlison Gopnik is a professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley. She received her BA from McGill University and her PhD. from Oxford University. Her honors include a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada University Research Fellowship, an Osher Visiting Scientist Fellowship at the Exploratorium, a Center for the Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences Fellowship, and a Moore Fellowship at the California Institute of Technology. She is an internationally recognized leader in the study of children’s learning and development and was the first to argue that children’s minds could help us understand deep philosophical questions. She was one of the founders of the study of "theory of mind", illuminating how children come to understand the minds of others, and she formulated the "theory theory", the idea that children’s learn in the same way that scientists do.
She is the author of over 100 articles and several books including "Words, thoughts and theories" (coauthored with Andrew Meltzoff), MIT Press, 1997, "The Scientist in the Crib" (coauthored with Andrew Meltzoff and Patricia Kuhl) William Morrow, 1999, and the just published "The Philosophical Baby; What children’s minds tell us about love, truth and the meaning of life" Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2009. "The Scientist in the Crib" was a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, was translated into 20 languages and was enthusiastically reviewed in Science, The New Yorker, the Washington Post and The New York Review of Books (among others). She has also written for Science, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, New Scientist, and Slate.
She has spoken extensively on children’s minds including keynote speeches to political organizations such as the World Economic Forum and the Organization for Economic Development, children’s advocacy organizations including Parents as Teachers and Zero to Three, museums including The Exploratorium, The Chicago Children’s Museum, and the Bay Area Discovery Museum, and science organizations including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, The American Psychological Association, the Association of Psychological Science, and the American Philosophical Association. She has also appeared on Charlie Rose, Nova, and many NPR radio programs. She has three sons and lives in Berkeley, California.
She is the author of over 100 articles and several books including "Words, thoughts and theories" (coauthored with Andrew Meltzoff), MIT Press, 1997, "The Scientist in the Crib" (coauthored with Andrew Meltzoff and Patricia Kuhl) William Morrow, 1999, and the just published "The Philosophical Baby; What children’s minds tell us about love, truth and the meaning of life" Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2009. "The Scientist in the Crib" was a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, was translated into 20 languages and was enthusiastically reviewed in Science, The New Yorker, the Washington Post and The New York Review of Books (among others). She has also written for Science, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, New Scientist, and Slate.
She has spoken extensively on children’s minds including keynote speeches to political organizations such as the World Economic Forum and the Organization for Economic Development, children’s advocacy organizations including Parents as Teachers and Zero to Three, museums including The Exploratorium, The Chicago Children’s Museum, and the Bay Area Discovery Museum, and science organizations including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, The American Psychological Association, the Association of Psychological Science, and the American Philosophical Association. She has also appeared on Charlie Rose, Nova, and many NPR radio programs. She has three sons and lives in Berkeley, California.
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September 4, 2016
I bought this book because I loved this piece in the Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately, I think that piece boils down much of what is interesting in the book itself. I find Gopnik's persona--part enthusiastic grandmother, part knowledgeable researcher--very appealing, so I never found the book difficult to read. But it did feel, in spite of its brevity, a little meandering and somewhat meager in its central insights. The analogy that gives the book its title--parents need to be like gardeners, creating sustaining environments for their children and enjoying them for their own development, including its surprises, rather than like carpenters, who follow sets of rules to produce something according to a blueprint--is the most vivid and helpful insight here. There's a long section on play and how important play is for child development and for a number of other mammals as well. This might surprise some readers, but perhaps I am so convinced of this point already that aside from articulating more clearly what play gives children (theory of mind, the ability to problem solve and to produce counterfactual possibilities), this section of the book was not as much of a revelation. Gopnik does point out that when we try to "teach" children things, they learn less--that they should be given open territory to explore in rather than have an adult trot out a map, and that was extremely interesting, particularly when she described some of the experiments her lab has run on this idea. Another section on technology felt riddled with truisms (we always worry about new technologies, children are always early-adopters, we have no idea what that will mean for the future, but usually, some older technologies are retained alongside the new devices that dominate culture).
I like Gopnik, and I wanted to love this book, and I did love its endorsement of caring for children as a central part in giving life meaning and also of producing an ethical engagement to society--that what seems like the selfish narrowness of caring for one child can in fact be drawn upon to foster social choices that support all children. But again, this sounds a bit platitudinous, no? Mainly, I think Gopnik is adding to the contemporary conversation about "parenting" by saying we should parent less, be available more. And that feels helpful, but it also feels like it's as far as this book really goes. Oh, wait! But maybe the best bit is the part where she describes preschoolers' unfocused attention and explains that adult brains of psilocybin are closest to preschooler brains all the time.
I like Gopnik, and I wanted to love this book, and I did love its endorsement of caring for children as a central part in giving life meaning and also of producing an ethical engagement to society--that what seems like the selfish narrowness of caring for one child can in fact be drawn upon to foster social choices that support all children. But again, this sounds a bit platitudinous, no? Mainly, I think Gopnik is adding to the contemporary conversation about "parenting" by saying we should parent less, be available more. And that feels helpful, but it also feels like it's as far as this book really goes. Oh, wait! But maybe the best bit is the part where she describes preschoolers' unfocused attention and explains that adult brains of psilocybin are closest to preschooler brains all the time.
November 11, 2022
کتاب بیشتر به فلسفهی فرزندپروری پرداخته و اصلا نمیشه به همه پیشنهادش کرد چون خیلی عمیق و سختخوان هست به نظرم.
March 28, 2020
جذاب ترین بخش کتاب برای من سوال روی جلده:
"برای فرزندانمان باغبان باشیم یا نجار؟"
و طرح جلد مرتبطی که جالب ترش کرده
تعریف کتاب رو تو برنامه کتاب باز از دکتر مجتبی شکوری شنیدم و وقتی دیدم تخفیف داشت تو سایت سفارش دادم ک برام بیاد
قشنگ ترین چیزی که از کتاب یاد گرفتم اینه که :
"آن عشق خاصی که با مراقبت از کودکان لازم است تنها محدود به پدر و مادر بیولوژیک نیست بلکه شامل تمام کسانی می شود که دانشگاهیان به آن مراقبتگر می گویند "
نمیدونم این جمله چقدر پشتوانه علمی داره و درسته ولی خیلی مفهوم قشنگتری داره نسبت به اینکه خیلی ها عقیده دارند پیوند خونی موجب عشق و علاقه خاصی میشه و من چقدر با ین عقیده مخالفم ،میتونم بگم حداقل برای من اصلا اینطور نیست.
مفهوم دیگه ای که محور کتاب هست رو میتونیم تو صفحه ۲۶ بخونیم که میاد و از هدف عشق میگه و نتیجه میگیره که عشق ورزیدن ما به کودک نباید منجر به این بشه که برای طفل مقصد تعیین کنیم بلکه باید عشقمون بهش قدرت و مایه این رو بده که سفر زندگیش رو آغاز کنه که هم مفهوم با همون سوالی هست که روی جلد کتاب نوشته شده
کتاب مقدمه خیلی خوبی داره و بخش های میانی کتاب پر از آزمایش ها علمی و مثال هایی از حیوانات به خصوص نخستی هاست که دلیل هایی هستند برای عقاید نویسنده نسبت به این ک چطور باید یک کودک رو تربیت کنیم که میتونه هم جالب باشه و هم نباشه
در بخش تاثیر بازی نویسنده ی چیز جالبی میگه که برای من جدید بود این که کودکانی که بازی می کنند کودکان سازگار تری هستند.
یک نکته مثبت دیگه کتاب هم این که منابع و رفرنس هایی که برای بخش های کتاب در پایان آورده شده باعث میشد ناخودآگاه اعتماد بیشتری نسبت به متن داشته باشم
در آخر بگم که ولی با همه این ها که اطلاعات جدید و خوبی گرفتم از کتاب
کتاب انتظارات من رو برآورده نکرد
نه اینکه کتاب خوبی نباشه
اصلا
فقط من برای خوندن کتاب ذوق زیادی داشتم و به تبع انتظار من هم از کتاب زیاد بود که موجب شد انتظاراتم برآورده نشه
در کل میتونه کتاب خوبی باشه و از اطلاعات جدیدی که دریافت میکنین لذت ببرین
"برای فرزندانمان باغبان باشیم یا نجار؟"
و طرح جلد مرتبطی که جالب ترش کرده
تعریف کتاب رو تو برنامه کتاب باز از دکتر مجتبی شکوری شنیدم و وقتی دیدم تخفیف داشت تو سایت سفارش دادم ک برام بیاد
قشنگ ترین چیزی که از کتاب یاد گرفتم اینه که :
"آن عشق خاصی که با مراقبت از کودکان لازم است تنها محدود به پدر و مادر بیولوژیک نیست بلکه شامل تمام کسانی می شود که دانشگاهیان به آن مراقبتگر می گویند "
نمیدونم این جمله چقدر پشتوانه علمی داره و درسته ولی خیلی مفهوم قشنگتری داره نسبت به اینکه خیلی ها عقیده دارند پیوند خونی موجب عشق و علاقه خاصی میشه و من چقدر با ین عقیده مخالفم ،میتونم بگم حداقل برای من اصلا اینطور نیست.
مفهوم دیگه ای که محور کتاب هست رو میتونیم تو صفحه ۲۶ بخونیم که میاد و از هدف عشق میگه و نتیجه میگیره که عشق ورزیدن ما به کودک نباید منجر به این بشه که برای طفل مقصد تعیین کنیم بلکه باید عشقمون بهش قدرت و مایه این رو بده که سفر زندگیش رو آغاز کنه که هم مفهوم با همون سوالی هست که روی جلد کتاب نوشته شده
کتاب مقدمه خیلی خوبی داره و بخش های میانی کتاب پر از آزمایش ها علمی و مثال هایی از حیوانات به خصوص نخستی هاست که دلیل هایی هستند برای عقاید نویسنده نسبت به این ک چطور باید یک کودک رو تربیت کنیم که میتونه هم جالب باشه و هم نباشه
در بخش تاثیر بازی نویسنده ی چیز جالبی میگه که برای من جدید بود این که کودکانی که بازی می کنند کودکان سازگار تری هستند.
یک نکته مثبت دیگه کتاب هم این که منابع و رفرنس هایی که برای بخش های کتاب در پایان آورده شده باعث میشد ناخودآگاه اعتماد بیشتری نسبت به متن داشته باشم
در آخر بگم که ولی با همه این ها که اطلاعات جدید و خوبی گرفتم از کتاب
کتاب انتظارات من رو برآورده نکرد
نه اینکه کتاب خوبی نباشه
اصلا
فقط من برای خوندن کتاب ذوق زیادی داشتم و به تبع انتظار من هم از کتاب زیاد بود که موجب شد انتظاراتم برآورده نشه
در کل میتونه کتاب خوبی باشه و از اطلاعات جدیدی که دریافت میکنین لذت ببرین
November 28, 2016
In some ways, this is a book that is best summarized by its title. When we act as parents, Dr. Gopnik is telling us, we should think of ourselves more as gardeners than as carpenters. The relevant difference is that the gardener is focused on growth, but doesn't usually try to insure details such as exactly how many leaves grow on the plant or where, just that there be about the right amount of leaves growing. A carpenter, on the other hand, usually does a lot of rather precise measuring and cutting, insuring a certain final outcome where all the pieces fit together. Gopnik appears to be concerned that modern "parenting" (she dislikes the verb, by the way, preferring the noun "parent") is becoming too similar to carpentry in its aspirations, and not enough like gardening.
The devil is in the details, though, and that is why the book is worth reading, even if you already know (and in my case, agree with) the thesis suggested by the title. Gopnik has spent decades, now, studying the mental processes of small children, and how those change over the first few years of life. She's also been a mother and a grandmother, which may seem only to provide anecdotal information but which I think may serve as a useful reality check on her theorizing. Unlike, say, Freud or Skinner, her theories on child psychology pass the test of contact with reality.
Gopnik is a person of strong opinions, for example believing that much of the "mess" of childhood, and the apparently purposeless play, is not just an inevitable but a productive part of human psychology. I believe it was Gopnik who I first heard voice the idea that children are society's R&D department, and that even if it were possible to teach them the "right" way to do things more quickly than we do, it would at least sometimes be unwise to. This contributes to, for example, her dislike of the trend in modern schools of nixing unstructured play in recess time, in favor of study of the topics likely to be covered in standardized testing. But beyond opinions, and even beyond her own research, she is thoroughly familiar with everything that has been discovered about child psychology in the last few decades, and she maintains a good mix of personal anecdote and reference to rigorously controlled scientific study.
A larger question is why more of that science doesn't find its way into how we raise and educate children today. I suspect it is because a lot of what has been discovered, would suggest that more of our children's education should resemble apprenticeship or vocational training, and that is exactly the opposite of what most of the education sector of our country has been pushing for. As the percentage of the population who go on to 16 years or more of schooling before doing "real work" goes up, and the percentage of our economic and financial sector which is reliant on that goes up (student loan debt is now bigger than credit card debt in the U.S.), any indication that we should be backpedaling on that in favor of education methods outside of the classroom (and standardized tests) is struggling against some pretty big industries (and their lobbyists). It will probably take a student loan crisis on the level of the 2008 mortgage crisis to cause any serious reappraisal of the goals and methods of education in this country.
However, just because you can't change the way the nation educates its children, doesn't mean you can't tweak how you educate your own child (or what you look for when choosing others to help do it). Whether the topic is play vs. study, how worried we should be about electronic devices and social media, or how to deal with adolescents being the way they are, she helps us to bring the immense amount of scientific study in the last few decades to us, in a way that we can understand and apply.
The devil is in the details, though, and that is why the book is worth reading, even if you already know (and in my case, agree with) the thesis suggested by the title. Gopnik has spent decades, now, studying the mental processes of small children, and how those change over the first few years of life. She's also been a mother and a grandmother, which may seem only to provide anecdotal information but which I think may serve as a useful reality check on her theorizing. Unlike, say, Freud or Skinner, her theories on child psychology pass the test of contact with reality.
Gopnik is a person of strong opinions, for example believing that much of the "mess" of childhood, and the apparently purposeless play, is not just an inevitable but a productive part of human psychology. I believe it was Gopnik who I first heard voice the idea that children are society's R&D department, and that even if it were possible to teach them the "right" way to do things more quickly than we do, it would at least sometimes be unwise to. This contributes to, for example, her dislike of the trend in modern schools of nixing unstructured play in recess time, in favor of study of the topics likely to be covered in standardized testing. But beyond opinions, and even beyond her own research, she is thoroughly familiar with everything that has been discovered about child psychology in the last few decades, and she maintains a good mix of personal anecdote and reference to rigorously controlled scientific study.
A larger question is why more of that science doesn't find its way into how we raise and educate children today. I suspect it is because a lot of what has been discovered, would suggest that more of our children's education should resemble apprenticeship or vocational training, and that is exactly the opposite of what most of the education sector of our country has been pushing for. As the percentage of the population who go on to 16 years or more of schooling before doing "real work" goes up, and the percentage of our economic and financial sector which is reliant on that goes up (student loan debt is now bigger than credit card debt in the U.S.), any indication that we should be backpedaling on that in favor of education methods outside of the classroom (and standardized tests) is struggling against some pretty big industries (and their lobbyists). It will probably take a student loan crisis on the level of the 2008 mortgage crisis to cause any serious reappraisal of the goals and methods of education in this country.
However, just because you can't change the way the nation educates its children, doesn't mean you can't tweak how you educate your own child (or what you look for when choosing others to help do it). Whether the topic is play vs. study, how worried we should be about electronic devices and social media, or how to deal with adolescents being the way they are, she helps us to bring the immense amount of scientific study in the last few decades to us, in a way that we can understand and apply.
January 18, 2018
I heard a great interview with this author about the difference between "parenting" and "being a parent" (I mean, think about it: Do I "wife" my husband or "daughter" my parents? What would that even look like? I'm not trying to change them.)
The book mostly hits the emphasis on child psychology with kind of a little "what parents can do" tacked on the end, which is okay, but I kept hoping for more link between theory and practice for individuals and communities. There is a nice chapter in the end where she talks about other policy implications beyond child care, but the connections to the science are, there, rather loose.
Anyway, I usually like hearing about the personal lives of the scientists, but there was a little too much Berkley here to keep my eyes from rolling (little "Augie" --I could stop there--enjoying vegan frozen yogurt at the farmers market) and to keep me from wondering how we apply these lessons to lower income, or even just not elite, families? For many kids, overscheduling would be a laugh, when parents can't even afford piano lessons, and techno-fear is less about what iPhones are doing to kids' minds and more about whether their kid can survive school without one. It's not that Gopnik doesn't ever mention other types of families, but that she seems to acknowledge them in the abstract and from afar--the anthropologist's perspective rather than the neighbor and friend's.
The book mostly hits the emphasis on child psychology with kind of a little "what parents can do" tacked on the end, which is okay, but I kept hoping for more link between theory and practice for individuals and communities. There is a nice chapter in the end where she talks about other policy implications beyond child care, but the connections to the science are, there, rather loose.
Anyway, I usually like hearing about the personal lives of the scientists, but there was a little too much Berkley here to keep my eyes from rolling (little "Augie" --I could stop there--enjoying vegan frozen yogurt at the farmers market) and to keep me from wondering how we apply these lessons to lower income, or even just not elite, families? For many kids, overscheduling would be a laugh, when parents can't even afford piano lessons, and techno-fear is less about what iPhones are doing to kids' minds and more about whether their kid can survive school without one. It's not that Gopnik doesn't ever mention other types of families, but that she seems to acknowledge them in the abstract and from afar--the anthropologist's perspective rather than the neighbor and friend's.
May 27, 2019
Don't buy this book. Here's what it says, but better:
We are doing our children a disservice by attempting to prescriptively "parent" them in the modern sense. Children do not learn or become successful adults by being instructed and molded. They learn through discovery and by example. We (parents, grandparents, teachers, society at large) would do better to get out of their way, let them play, and love them unconditionally.
There. Now you know the good stuff, without hundreds of pages worth of Gopnik's stilted, annoying writing style, the same studies you've already learned about in every other parenting book, and unrelated anecdotes about Gopnik's perfect grandson eating organic vegan sorbet and how thankful she is she got an abortion at age 40.
There's also some decent information (again, though, buried in chaff and rambling) about schools, technology, and how important it is to read to kids and encourage them to read, but you can get all of that information elsewhere in better books.
We are doing our children a disservice by attempting to prescriptively "parent" them in the modern sense. Children do not learn or become successful adults by being instructed and molded. They learn through discovery and by example. We (parents, grandparents, teachers, society at large) would do better to get out of their way, let them play, and love them unconditionally.
There. Now you know the good stuff, without hundreds of pages worth of Gopnik's stilted, annoying writing style, the same studies you've already learned about in every other parenting book, and unrelated anecdotes about Gopnik's perfect grandson eating organic vegan sorbet and how thankful she is she got an abortion at age 40.
There's also some decent information (again, though, buried in chaff and rambling) about schools, technology, and how important it is to read to kids and encourage them to read, but you can get all of that information elsewhere in better books.
July 10, 2022
استدلالهای کتاب یه جاهایی مشکل داره. خیلی هم به عمق نرفته در مورد مسائلی که مطرح میکنه. ولی در مجموع خوندنش برای من مفید بود و درهای چدیدی رو باز کرد. مخصوصا در بخش مربوط به کودک و فنآوری.
June 22, 2023
آلیسون گوپنیک روانشناس، فیلسوف و مادربزرگ کتابی نوشته است درباره والد بودن و نه والدگری. از تجارب شخصی و آزمایشهای علمی خود و دیگران دراینباره شاهدمثال آورده است.
چیزی که بارها و بارها در کتاب بر و روی آن تاکید و تکرار میشود، آنست که والدین باید برای کودکان محیطی امن و حمایتی و محافظتشده فراهم آورند تا طیف متنوع و منحصربهفردی از کودکان در آن بشکفند و رشد کنند، نه کودکان یکدست و یکشکل.
کتابیست خواندنی، اما جاهایی از آن به دلیل سیل آزمایشهای ذکر شده، خسته کننده میشد و خیلی از بخشهای آن برای من بهواسطه دانش، تخصص و تجربهام دراینرابطه، تکراری بود.
کتاب را به همه والدین (بالفعل و بالقوه)، معلمان، مربیان، مراقبان کودک و عاشقان تعلیم و تربیت و کودک توصیه میکنم.
از متن کتاب:
«بینشی که ما از فهم کودکان بهدست میآوریم، میتواند به ما کمک کند تا مسائل بزرگسالی را نیز حل کنیم.» صفحه ۲۹
چیزی که بارها و بارها در کتاب بر و روی آن تاکید و تکرار میشود، آنست که والدین باید برای کودکان محیطی امن و حمایتی و محافظتشده فراهم آورند تا طیف متنوع و منحصربهفردی از کودکان در آن بشکفند و رشد کنند، نه کودکان یکدست و یکشکل.
کتابیست خواندنی، اما جاهایی از آن به دلیل سیل آزمایشهای ذکر شده، خسته کننده میشد و خیلی از بخشهای آن برای من بهواسطه دانش، تخصص و تجربهام دراینرابطه، تکراری بود.
کتاب را به همه والدین (بالفعل و بالقوه)، معلمان، مربیان، مراقبان کودک و عاشقان تعلیم و تربیت و کودک توصیه میکنم.
از متن کتاب:
«بینشی که ما از فهم کودکان بهدست میآوریم، میتواند به ما کمک کند تا مسائل بزرگسالی را نیز حل کنیم.» صفحه ۲۹
April 17, 2017
Exceptionally lucid and humane overview of a vast amount of scientific research on learning and cognitive development. The subtitle and cover are a bit of a misdirection - this is not a gauzy parenting how-to book. Instead, it's a thought provoking, richly detailed and well-written exploration of how we learn by imitating, by listening, by playing, and how learning changes in schools (not usually for the better) and is changed by technology (not so much for the worse as you might think). The implications for parents are there - and the final chapter attempts to tie the preceding chapters together with an elegiac meditation on parenting. For me, though, the meatier earlier chapters were the real revelation, delivering without being too heavy handed, the message of the title: As parents and caregivers we should seek to nurture our young and accept they'll be different from our imagined progeny; we should not think our job is to build replicas of ourselves guided by our, or society's, blueprint.
June 16, 2022
اگر درگیر بچه شدید یا به زودی خواهید شد کتاب خیلی خوبیه. من خودم با معرفی آقای مجتبی شکوری با کتاب آشنا شدم و اونجا خیلی کامل و مفصل توضیح دادن.
در کل یک عالی تمام عیار.
در کل یک عالی تمام عیار.
October 10, 2018
This was a fairly quick read that packed in a lot of depth. The central premise of the book is that "parenting" as a verb, as an act of trying to produce a certain type of adult, is a endeavor that does not work well and makes us less happy. Instead, we should think of being a parent as providing an environment where the unique relationship between children and those who care for them (parents or otherwise) can help them learn about and explore the world.
Humans have a long period of childhood relative to most animals. This childhood provides a chance for a long period of exploration, learning, and variability. Parents transmit their cultural and technological knowledge to children and children take that and shape their knowledge so that eventually they can shape the world themselves.
However, learning generally does not happen through the intentional education that we provide when we set out to provide enriching experiences to our children. It does not come from flash cards, educational videos, tutoring, or any of the many other aids that we provide to help train children how to perform well on tests. Instead, children learn most effectively through observation and conversation. Children imitate adults in very intentional ways. They do not merely copy behavior. Instead, even from an early age, children work on inferring the goal and knowledge level of the person they are watching and will explore and vary their imitation to try to accomplish the goal more effectively. Children also ask questions quite intentionally. When children form endless chains of whys, the questions generally work to strengthen their ability to predict how the world works. '
Children learn best through play. That does not mean that unstructured environments are the best for learning (although they are likely better than overly structured environments). Rather, what works best is when adults provide scaffolding: rich environments which trigger curiosity about interesting topics, pointers for when children want to learn more, and perhaps most importantly, a playmate. Play is delicate though. As soon as play starts to feel required or like work, it will stop being play and learning will grind to a halt.
Young children are focused on the broad, messy process of exploration. As children get older, they work more on developing their ability to exploit the knowledge they have. Older children work on refining the skills they have until they can perform them with ease. Older children are more sober and reliable, in many ways, than teenagers. During the teenage years the brain once again prioritizes exploration, this time exploration into the world of independence. It is commonly believed that the teenage brain is quite immature and as a consequence that, perhaps, we should give teens less rights and responsibilities until they are older. However, this model is wrong in a small but important way. The teenage brain is immature, but the prefrontal cortex control that will make a teenage brain into a sober adult brain does not develop at a certain age. It develops through use. Thus, instead of giving teens less responsibility and then throwing them out into the world as adults, we should be giving them more responsibility sooner -- but in an environment where the consequences of their actions ramp up slowly.
Parents are often concerned about the affect of technology on children. Gopnik points out that as much as we are seeing change now, past technologies like reading, trains, and telegraphs caused at least as much societal change as the internet. Yet now we barely think of these as technologies anymore. Technology is disorienting when it is introduced to adults because we no longer explore playfully (partially because our brains are less plastic, but also because we do not let ourselves). Our children will develop new techniques and new norms for dealing with technology. This does not mean that technology doesn't have an impact. Written text, fast travel, and instant communication have changed the course of human existence -- and not always for the better. New technologies such as the internet continue to do so. However, what we do not need to worry about is that our children will be adrift on the technologies of today. They will see them as natural.
As an aside, one of the interesting things about reading is that readers have significant portions of their brain that are specialized for reading. This is despite the fact that reading has happened much more recently than could have been accounted for by biological evolution. The reading brain co-opted processing centers, such as visual centers which detect edges, to become so efficient that reading is both fluid and involuntary. The mind is incredibly adaptable.
Gopnik ends on a chapter about how we value children. Having a child is choosing to take part in a special relationship that will change a person forever. Parents, in a very real well, do not just consider their children's interests as important as their own. Parents seem to literally treat the interests of their young children, as their own interests. Yet raising children also has traditionally been a community task. Care takers throughout a community have had roles in making sure that children have both the material and social resources they need to thrive. This is something we have lost in our industrial and postindustrial society. Figuring out how to modernize this sort of community care which is not based in generics but in specific relationships is a pressing problem of our time. Gopnik also points out that taking care of parents as they age is a similar problem. As a society, we tend to treat it as a problem each family needs to solve individually, but we could structure our society to value care taking and provide better support for care takers.
Anyone who cares about children, whether or not they have or plan to have their own, should read this book.
Humans have a long period of childhood relative to most animals. This childhood provides a chance for a long period of exploration, learning, and variability. Parents transmit their cultural and technological knowledge to children and children take that and shape their knowledge so that eventually they can shape the world themselves.
However, learning generally does not happen through the intentional education that we provide when we set out to provide enriching experiences to our children. It does not come from flash cards, educational videos, tutoring, or any of the many other aids that we provide to help train children how to perform well on tests. Instead, children learn most effectively through observation and conversation. Children imitate adults in very intentional ways. They do not merely copy behavior. Instead, even from an early age, children work on inferring the goal and knowledge level of the person they are watching and will explore and vary their imitation to try to accomplish the goal more effectively. Children also ask questions quite intentionally. When children form endless chains of whys, the questions generally work to strengthen their ability to predict how the world works. '
Children learn best through play. That does not mean that unstructured environments are the best for learning (although they are likely better than overly structured environments). Rather, what works best is when adults provide scaffolding: rich environments which trigger curiosity about interesting topics, pointers for when children want to learn more, and perhaps most importantly, a playmate. Play is delicate though. As soon as play starts to feel required or like work, it will stop being play and learning will grind to a halt.
Young children are focused on the broad, messy process of exploration. As children get older, they work more on developing their ability to exploit the knowledge they have. Older children work on refining the skills they have until they can perform them with ease. Older children are more sober and reliable, in many ways, than teenagers. During the teenage years the brain once again prioritizes exploration, this time exploration into the world of independence. It is commonly believed that the teenage brain is quite immature and as a consequence that, perhaps, we should give teens less rights and responsibilities until they are older. However, this model is wrong in a small but important way. The teenage brain is immature, but the prefrontal cortex control that will make a teenage brain into a sober adult brain does not develop at a certain age. It develops through use. Thus, instead of giving teens less responsibility and then throwing them out into the world as adults, we should be giving them more responsibility sooner -- but in an environment where the consequences of their actions ramp up slowly.
Parents are often concerned about the affect of technology on children. Gopnik points out that as much as we are seeing change now, past technologies like reading, trains, and telegraphs caused at least as much societal change as the internet. Yet now we barely think of these as technologies anymore. Technology is disorienting when it is introduced to adults because we no longer explore playfully (partially because our brains are less plastic, but also because we do not let ourselves). Our children will develop new techniques and new norms for dealing with technology. This does not mean that technology doesn't have an impact. Written text, fast travel, and instant communication have changed the course of human existence -- and not always for the better. New technologies such as the internet continue to do so. However, what we do not need to worry about is that our children will be adrift on the technologies of today. They will see them as natural.
As an aside, one of the interesting things about reading is that readers have significant portions of their brain that are specialized for reading. This is despite the fact that reading has happened much more recently than could have been accounted for by biological evolution. The reading brain co-opted processing centers, such as visual centers which detect edges, to become so efficient that reading is both fluid and involuntary. The mind is incredibly adaptable.
Gopnik ends on a chapter about how we value children. Having a child is choosing to take part in a special relationship that will change a person forever. Parents, in a very real well, do not just consider their children's interests as important as their own. Parents seem to literally treat the interests of their young children, as their own interests. Yet raising children also has traditionally been a community task. Care takers throughout a community have had roles in making sure that children have both the material and social resources they need to thrive. This is something we have lost in our industrial and postindustrial society. Figuring out how to modernize this sort of community care which is not based in generics but in specific relationships is a pressing problem of our time. Gopnik also points out that taking care of parents as they age is a similar problem. As a society, we tend to treat it as a problem each family needs to solve individually, but we could structure our society to value care taking and provide better support for care takers.
Anyone who cares about children, whether or not they have or plan to have their own, should read this book.
January 3, 2023
داشتن فرزند برای من تصویر هم زمان به شدت جذاب و به شدت ترسناکه.
مسئولیت سنگین و از دست دادن بخش زیادی از زمانی که برای خودم دارم در یک طرف قضیه و در طرف دیگه (و شاید طرف مهمتر قضیه) اینکه از کجا بدونم رفتارم به عنوان یه مادر، به اندازه کافی خوبه؟
تمام نمونههایی از والدین که در اطرافیانم میبینم به نوعی نقص دارند.
ضعفهایی که شاید اجتناب ناپذیر هم باشه، یا حداقل در لحظه اکنون که بهش فکر میکنم، نمیتونم بفهمم رفتار درست چی میتونست باشه؟
این کتاب، چندین ماه همراه با من به محل کارم اومد و به خانه برگشت.
شبکاریهای طولانی و عصرهایی که شیفت بودم...خوندنش راحت نبود، اما قطع به یقین، از خوندنش راضیم. برای اینکه بهتر بفهمم بعضی صفحات رو چندبار خوندم و دائم به عقب برمیگشتم تا دوباره نکات رو کنار هم بذارم.
این کتاب علی الخصوص با روحیه افرادی سازگاره که از خوندن درباره یافتههای علمی و آزمایشها، تکامل بشر در زمان و علوم شناختی لذت میبرند.
فرزند داشتن هنوز هم برای من صورت مسئله بزرگ و پیچیدهایه، اما بعد از خوندن این کتاب، فکر میکنم که میتونم راه خودم رو در این هزارتوی پیچیدهی مادر بودن، پیدا کنم.
مسئولیت سنگین و از دست دادن بخش زیادی از زمانی که برای خودم دارم در یک طرف قضیه و در طرف دیگه (و شاید طرف مهمتر قضیه) اینکه از کجا بدونم رفتارم به عنوان یه مادر، به اندازه کافی خوبه؟
تمام نمونههایی از والدین که در اطرافیانم میبینم به نوعی نقص دارند.
ضعفهایی که شاید اجتناب ناپذیر هم باشه، یا حداقل در لحظه اکنون که بهش فکر میکنم، نمیتونم بفهمم رفتار درست چی میتونست باشه؟
این کتاب، چندین ماه همراه با من به محل کارم اومد و به خانه برگشت.
شبکاریهای طولانی و عصرهایی که شیفت بودم...خوندنش راحت نبود، اما قطع به یقین، از خوندنش راضیم. برای اینکه بهتر بفهمم بعضی صفحات رو چندبار خوندم و دائم به عقب برمیگشتم تا دوباره نکات رو کنار هم بذارم.
این کتاب علی الخصوص با روحیه افرادی سازگاره که از خوندن درباره یافتههای علمی و آزمایشها، تکامل بشر در زمان و علوم شناختی لذت میبرند.
فرزند داشتن هنوز هم برای من صورت مسئله بزرگ و پیچیدهایه، اما بعد از خوندن این کتاب، فکر میکنم که میتونم راه خودم رو در این هزارتوی پیچیدهی مادر بودن، پیدا کنم.
July 24, 2021
ایده محوری کتاب بغایت ساده و سرراست است؛ و نویسنده تلاش کرده با قلم زدن و آسمون و ریسمون بافتن بر حجم کتاب اضافه کند. ترجمه برومندی خیلی مناسب نیست و شدیدا به یک ویراستاری قوی احتیاج دارد. به نظرم از دویست صفحه نخست کتاب می توان صرفنظر کرد.
August 5, 2022
شاید بسیاری این کتاب را بخوانند تا شناخت و درک بهتری نسبت به تربیت کودکان داشته باشن، اما من علاوه برآن از این جهت کتاب را خواندم که شناخت و درک بهتری نسبت به تربیت و دوران کودکی خودم داشته باشم.
برای من که قبلا در این زمینه مطالعه نداشتم کتاب نسبتا جامعی بود اگر چه برخی جاها توضیحات اضافی زیادی داشت. با توجه به ذکر منابع و رفرنس دهی آخر کتاب میشه موضوعات رو بیشتر پیگیری و مطالعه کرد.
برای من که قبلا در این زمینه مطالعه نداشتم کتاب نسبتا جامعی بود اگر چه برخی جاها توضیحات اضافی زیادی داشت. با توجه به ذکر منابع و رفرنس دهی آخر کتاب میشه موضوعات رو بیشتر پیگیری و مطالعه کرد.
June 21, 2020
'The Gardener and the Carpenter’ should have been a long blogpost. I’m reminded why I dislike most non-fiction so much: every essay is being dragged out to 250 pages because then it can be sold as a full book. I’d be happy to buy these books for the same price if they’re shorter — but I get annoyed when filler is wasting my time.
I bought this book after reading 'Meet the parenting expert who thinks parenting is a terrible invention’ from The Correspondent — which appealed to me. Parents shouldn’t try so hard to mould the perfect child, but provide a safe space in which the child can grow up and explore and make mistakes. (This also matches how my parents raised me.) And that article gripped me in a way the book never did.
The book’s amazing message is clear from the intro, but then Gopnik goes into metaphors about dieting and the Lyme disease, and examples about cavemen fighting mammoths, New Caledonian crows, or the Ju/‘hoansi people. And when Gopnik compares babies to vole field mouses, there’s a feeling of cult that reminds me of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life (who compares humans to lobsters). But better authors pull of tricks Gopnik can’t. In one page, she goes from mentioning that monkeys are able to identify T’s, to using a quote from Socrates to prove her point. Unlike better books, Gopnik’s message isn’t holistic and doesn’t fully convince me, and difficult topics are often concluded with “Science still has a lot to discover”.
In a chapter about technology Gopnik tries to be a Yuval Noah Harari, but makes a poor futurologist. Calling young people ‘digital natives’ is enough to trigger my bullshit-meter. And people don’t talk to the whole world on the web — far from.
Neither do her one-liners strike me as true: “We don’t care for children because we love them, we care for children because we love them.”
On the upside, the chapter on teenagers is great — and the overall message deserves being heard. But it should have just been a blogpost, or at most, an essay.
I bought this book after reading 'Meet the parenting expert who thinks parenting is a terrible invention’ from The Correspondent — which appealed to me. Parents shouldn’t try so hard to mould the perfect child, but provide a safe space in which the child can grow up and explore and make mistakes. (This also matches how my parents raised me.) And that article gripped me in a way the book never did.
The book’s amazing message is clear from the intro, but then Gopnik goes into metaphors about dieting and the Lyme disease, and examples about cavemen fighting mammoths, New Caledonian crows, or the Ju/‘hoansi people. And when Gopnik compares babies to vole field mouses, there’s a feeling of cult that reminds me of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life (who compares humans to lobsters). But better authors pull of tricks Gopnik can’t. In one page, she goes from mentioning that monkeys are able to identify T’s, to using a quote from Socrates to prove her point. Unlike better books, Gopnik’s message isn’t holistic and doesn’t fully convince me, and difficult topics are often concluded with “Science still has a lot to discover”.
In a chapter about technology Gopnik tries to be a Yuval Noah Harari, but makes a poor futurologist. Calling young people ‘digital natives’ is enough to trigger my bullshit-meter. And people don’t talk to the whole world on the web — far from.
Neither do her one-liners strike me as true: “We don’t care for children because we love them, we care for children because we love them.”
On the upside, the chapter on teenagers is great — and the overall message deserves being heard. But it should have just been a blogpost, or at most, an essay.
December 10, 2016
Written with authority by an academic (UC Berkeley) and grandmother, but does not read at all like an academic writing. It was a joy to read. She writes about such things as tip-toeing through her dark garden hand-in-hand with her grandson so as to not awaken the tiger in the avocado tree. She explains child development and the need to let children develop in their own ways rather than trying to shape them into a parent's vision of who they should be. Confirmed my experience with our 2-year-old grandson and gave me insights to my own development in childhood. Highly recommend this book to all parents, grand-parents and other relatives of children as well as anyone who teaches or works with children. Informative and fun to read!
February 14, 2017
The premise of this book can be distilled from its title (which makes it a great title): there are two parenting styles--the gardener (who gives kids fertilizer, space, and a reason to grow and lets them do it) and the carpenter (who exactly measures every facet of the kid's life with the intention of making him/her grow up a certain way). I already fell into the gardener space before reading this book, but the argument presented in the book helped steady me in my choice. Only through play, experimentation, trial, error, and messiness will a person grow into who they are. My job as a parent isn't to fit my child to my measurements (or anyone else's); my job is to give them the tools, time, and space to find their own measurements and grow into them.
May 15, 2017
Given the author has written a ground breaking book like 'The Scientist in the Crib', I had high expectations of 'the gardener and the carpenter'. Unfortunately, I felt disappointed throughout the book. It was a mish
mash of the author's personal experiences with her grandson Augie, some research that she has done and some references to other studies. The Book meandered through a meadow of ideas without building up on any particular one. The main theme she explores is a powerful one but that can be addressed well enough in an article rather than a book.
It is one of those books that would have been better as an article.
mash of the author's personal experiences with her grandson Augie, some research that she has done and some references to other studies. The Book meandered through a meadow of ideas without building up on any particular one. The main theme she explores is a powerful one but that can be addressed well enough in an article rather than a book.
It is one of those books that would have been better as an article.
January 29, 2022
Sure, there's the usual problem with pop science that it could have been an essay instead of a 250+ page book, but I loved it anyway. The philosophy is better and more interesting than the psychology (and more likely to replicate...). I also appreciated the anecdotes about her children and grandchildren, which reinforced the unique relationship between a specific caregiver and a specific child. The first chapter and last two chapters are excellent, and provide some fairly profound advice about how to live your life and what it means to be human. Overall, I found this book very relevant and meaningful.
April 10, 2024
The central theme is ok enough; in raising a child, either you water and nurture your plant and let it bloom on its own merit, or you constantly hover above your bonzai tree, ever vigilant, tirelessly pruning it to perfection. And there the book's added value grinds to a premature halt, full stop; no new science as advertized and everytime the author tries to deepen her discussion you walk away with the feeling she just pulled up the relevant wikipedia page and started quoting from it at length; in addition the author’s personal anecdotes as grandmother are cute enough on their own but quickly become quite irritating. On the subject of parenting, be sure to instead check out the excellent: Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers.
August 19, 2018
Things I love about this book:
- The scientific research and studies she presents. The research on play backs up the philosophies of RIE parenting + Magda Gerber. Giving kids lots of free and independent play time fosters creativity and investigation. Children are little scientists, and they have surprisingly sophisticated methods for figuring out the world. Loved learning more about how children learn.
- The way she breaks down the traditional "parenting" model. I've read quite a few books on parenting and raising children, and there is a plethora of contrary advice out there. I love the way Gopnik explores how children are not blank slates to be molded the way parents wish, but individuals who need consistency and security to grow and interact with their environment.
- Her thoughts on screen time. She had a fresh perspective on screens and technology that I hadn't heard before.
Things I hated:
- Her conclusions about public policy. I get that she's a scientist, and she is looking at society as a whole, but forcing everyone to pay for public daycare and elderly care is not a solution. In the final chapters, she is basically advocating for socialism! It would be better if she stuck to psychology and left economics to economists.
- Her nihilistic view on human nature.
- The scientific research and studies she presents. The research on play backs up the philosophies of RIE parenting + Magda Gerber. Giving kids lots of free and independent play time fosters creativity and investigation. Children are little scientists, and they have surprisingly sophisticated methods for figuring out the world. Loved learning more about how children learn.
- The way she breaks down the traditional "parenting" model. I've read quite a few books on parenting and raising children, and there is a plethora of contrary advice out there. I love the way Gopnik explores how children are not blank slates to be molded the way parents wish, but individuals who need consistency and security to grow and interact with their environment.
- Her thoughts on screen time. She had a fresh perspective on screens and technology that I hadn't heard before.
Things I hated:
- Her conclusions about public policy. I get that she's a scientist, and she is looking at society as a whole, but forcing everyone to pay for public daycare and elderly care is not a solution. In the final chapters, she is basically advocating for socialism! It would be better if she stuck to psychology and left economics to economists.
- Her nihilistic view on human nature.
September 4, 2023
کتاب زبان علمی و سخت خوانی داره و خوندنش رو نمیشه به هرکسی توصیه کرد. نظرم درموردش متوسطه. به نظرم نثر روون و قابل فهمی نداره زیاد. و در کل بیشتر در مورد فلسفه ی فرزند پروری هستش . یکبار خوندنش خالی از لطف نبود. اما سه ستاره کافیه گمونم
June 6, 2021
Toda mamãe e papai deveriam ler.
May 19, 2021
Great insight into the mind of a baby. They're way better at learning than adults they just dont know much yet!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 27, 2022
همونطور که فکر میکردم خیلی طول کشید تا تمومش کنم. همه مطالب رو متوجه نمیشدم، کمی هم مطالب فرار بودن. ولی برای یه بار خوندن خوب بود. مخصوصا اگه والد یا معلم باشین.
April 8, 2021
من وقتی عنوان رو دیدم انتظار داشتم به تقابل دو مدل فرزندپروری، نجاری در برابر باغبانی بپردازه، ولی جز مقدمهای کوتاه چیزی در این باره تو کتاب نبود و از این منظر ناامید کننده بود
February 2, 2021
I really wanted to like this book. I definitely feel and believe her hypothesis: parenting should be like gardening and not carpentry. However I found quite little in the book to back that up, and it certainly wouldn't convince anyone who doubted it.
This isn't really a book about the latest science of child development, even though it's all over the cover, back, and review quotes. There is some science in the middle about how kids will interact with a toy after watching an adult use it in different contexts which is very interesting, but not extensive enough to prove her thesis. A better book for that is Nurtureshock, but that is a little old now.
The author is a prof. of both psychology and philosophy at UC Berkeley. I think more of her philosophy got into this book, and it's not in a very organized way. She goes off on a multi-page rant at the end about how eldercare is messed up in this country. Not saying it's not, but it's really an aside while she should be wrapping up the main point of the book.
She brings some of her own personal biases into the story. For example, she says the 3 types of childraising are parenting, aloparenting and grandMOTHERING. So... grandfathers just don't exist? Maybe because she is divorced (which I don't even want to know about, she just brings it up multiple times in the book) she wants to get a little dig in on her ex and say grandfathers don't count.
But then on the flipside she namedrops that her husband (ex or new? not sure) was the co-founder of Pixar. Completely irrelevant to the book when she writes it. Although it does explain to me why someone who doesn't have very interesting ideas after decades of professorship at Berkeley is still there.
Jesus Christ, a white college professor of philosophy at Berkeley who married a silicon valley (most likely) billionaire. Can you get any more privileged than that? And she thinks you should treat your kids like a garden! Isn't that special?! Well of course no child or grandchild of hers ever has to worry about anything. I'd really like a true scientific investigation of "the work of parenting" as she calls it, among real people. Unfortunately, it would probably show that it has a strong impact and should be pursued by most poor and middle class families.
This isn't really a book about the latest science of child development, even though it's all over the cover, back, and review quotes. There is some science in the middle about how kids will interact with a toy after watching an adult use it in different contexts which is very interesting, but not extensive enough to prove her thesis. A better book for that is Nurtureshock, but that is a little old now.
The author is a prof. of both psychology and philosophy at UC Berkeley. I think more of her philosophy got into this book, and it's not in a very organized way. She goes off on a multi-page rant at the end about how eldercare is messed up in this country. Not saying it's not, but it's really an aside while she should be wrapping up the main point of the book.
She brings some of her own personal biases into the story. For example, she says the 3 types of childraising are parenting, aloparenting and grandMOTHERING. So... grandfathers just don't exist? Maybe because she is divorced (which I don't even want to know about, she just brings it up multiple times in the book) she wants to get a little dig in on her ex and say grandfathers don't count.
But then on the flipside she namedrops that her husband (ex or new? not sure) was the co-founder of Pixar. Completely irrelevant to the book when she writes it. Although it does explain to me why someone who doesn't have very interesting ideas after decades of professorship at Berkeley is still there.
Jesus Christ, a white college professor of philosophy at Berkeley who married a silicon valley (most likely) billionaire. Can you get any more privileged than that? And she thinks you should treat your kids like a garden! Isn't that special?! Well of course no child or grandchild of hers ever has to worry about anything. I'd really like a true scientific investigation of "the work of parenting" as she calls it, among real people. Unfortunately, it would probably show that it has a strong impact and should be pursued by most poor and middle class families.
February 20, 2022
Easy to read book backed by research written by a researcher on raising kids. Book is summarised in its title but the book has good insights on play, school, teaching and the value of each.
November 12, 2020
I didn’t finish it. It was boring and self indulgent. The author spoke from her own privileged experiences of successful child rearing that feels unobtainable without an extensive network of family & friends.
May 14, 2021
I love these Gopnik books about parenthood so much. She lives at the intersection of science and philosophy (I believe she is a prof of both at ...Berkeley?), and I find that the perfect place to introspect about the wild ride that is becoming a mother or a father.
In this installment, she largely dissects two different models of what it means to be a parent: the titular gardener and the carpenter. The dominant model of "parenting" these days is the carpenter one: you set out with your tools and your blueprints to shape a young person into a fully formed young adult according to your own values and ambitions. In this model, parenting is a verb, something you do to your child, a one way, exhausting trudge to hone their edges into an acceptable mold. It leads to certain policies such as the emphasis on standardized testing, and learning ones letters instead of playing even from a young age. Everything becomes purpose driven.
Gopnik calls the entire verb "parenting" into question, pointing out that no other relationship in our life is made into an action word in this way. We do not "husband" our wives or "daughter" our parents. Gopnik highlights another possibility: that instead of viewing parents as carpenters, we instead view them as gardeners. We provide the rich soil, the structured environment suited for the individual needs of our children, but where and how they grow is up to the individual vagaries of the seedling. We cannot ordain the height of a tulip, or the number of apples our tree produces. Instead we provide them with what they need, and hope for the best.
I find it a beautiful way of thinking. Every individual life will take its own course, one that we as the older generation cannot even probably imagine with the tools existing today. How should I know what is best for the life that they will live? Their gifts and weaknesses may be very different from my own, and certainly the environment they grow up in is something entirely new. I can show them what I value, along with the many other adults they will come in contact with as they grow, but they will ultimately weave this into a whole new pattern of a life that I cannot even imagine now. This is the bittersweet beauty of the human experience, this mix of dependence and independence.
There are a lot of interesting other ideas around childrearing, largely based on science, but studies are only a gentle secondary presence in this book. I think there is a temptation with raising children, like in many other aspects of life, to hope for a "recipe for success," a series of steps that if you follow it will results in a successful outcome. To let go of that certainty is both freeing and terrifying, but necessary, I believe. In some ways I have realized that the type of parent you are is something that emerges in a surprising way sometime after this tiny creature is handed to you. While my daughter has surprised me, I think perhaps what has surprised me more is the way you become someone entirely different than you were before. I do not miss the aspects of my old life that I thought that I would. They are just different- transformed. I still value most of the same things, but the light that I see the world in has subtly and importantly shifted. I think few gardeners would argue that the time spent in their garden has changed them, too.
It took me ages to finish this, as I actually largely read it out loud to Emilia in small bursts while lying on the floor as she was playing (all part of my implementation of some of the ideas of this book. She should see me doing the things that I love!). As she got bigger, she seemed to grow more curious about what exactly I was doing. She likes to crawl over and put her head on my shoulder and peer inside the book to see what I am seeing, exactly. I think I will always remember those sweet moments when I remember this book.
In this installment, she largely dissects two different models of what it means to be a parent: the titular gardener and the carpenter. The dominant model of "parenting" these days is the carpenter one: you set out with your tools and your blueprints to shape a young person into a fully formed young adult according to your own values and ambitions. In this model, parenting is a verb, something you do to your child, a one way, exhausting trudge to hone their edges into an acceptable mold. It leads to certain policies such as the emphasis on standardized testing, and learning ones letters instead of playing even from a young age. Everything becomes purpose driven.
Gopnik calls the entire verb "parenting" into question, pointing out that no other relationship in our life is made into an action word in this way. We do not "husband" our wives or "daughter" our parents. Gopnik highlights another possibility: that instead of viewing parents as carpenters, we instead view them as gardeners. We provide the rich soil, the structured environment suited for the individual needs of our children, but where and how they grow is up to the individual vagaries of the seedling. We cannot ordain the height of a tulip, or the number of apples our tree produces. Instead we provide them with what they need, and hope for the best.
I find it a beautiful way of thinking. Every individual life will take its own course, one that we as the older generation cannot even probably imagine with the tools existing today. How should I know what is best for the life that they will live? Their gifts and weaknesses may be very different from my own, and certainly the environment they grow up in is something entirely new. I can show them what I value, along with the many other adults they will come in contact with as they grow, but they will ultimately weave this into a whole new pattern of a life that I cannot even imagine now. This is the bittersweet beauty of the human experience, this mix of dependence and independence.
There are a lot of interesting other ideas around childrearing, largely based on science, but studies are only a gentle secondary presence in this book. I think there is a temptation with raising children, like in many other aspects of life, to hope for a "recipe for success," a series of steps that if you follow it will results in a successful outcome. To let go of that certainty is both freeing and terrifying, but necessary, I believe. In some ways I have realized that the type of parent you are is something that emerges in a surprising way sometime after this tiny creature is handed to you. While my daughter has surprised me, I think perhaps what has surprised me more is the way you become someone entirely different than you were before. I do not miss the aspects of my old life that I thought that I would. They are just different- transformed. I still value most of the same things, but the light that I see the world in has subtly and importantly shifted. I think few gardeners would argue that the time spent in their garden has changed them, too.
It took me ages to finish this, as I actually largely read it out loud to Emilia in small bursts while lying on the floor as she was playing (all part of my implementation of some of the ideas of this book. She should see me doing the things that I love!). As she got bigger, she seemed to grow more curious about what exactly I was doing. She likes to crawl over and put her head on my shoulder and peer inside the book to see what I am seeing, exactly. I think I will always remember those sweet moments when I remember this book.
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