The Gardener and the Carpenter by Alison Gopnik

The most important rewards of being a parent aren't your children's grades and trophies--or even their graduations and weddings. They come from the moment-by-moment physical and psychological joy of being with this particular child, and in that child's moment-by-moment joy in being with you. 

Gopnik goes to great lengths to make clear that this is not a "parenting" book--a verb she disdains and generally rejects the premise of. That being said, this is, for lack of a better word, a parenting book (and is shelved and categorized as such). She argues that the past few decades have created a rise in demand for parenting guides as new parents move further from their own parents, and as extended families dissolve (leaving us with fewer opportunities to practice parenting on nieces, nephews, and cousins). Gopnik brings her expertise as a developmental psychologist to bear on the issue of how we should raise our children--what do they need and when do they need it? How do we impact their lives? Her thesis, both troubling and reassuring, is not only do children not need much of what we have come to think of as "parenting," the strategies and styles we obsess over seem to have little to no effect on adult outcomes. Children need a baseline of love and security. They need food and shelter and a safe space within which to learn and grow, but that's about it. It probably doesn't matter whether or not you sleep train them or what kindergarten they attend or how many extracurriculars they participate in.

The overarching metaphor here is that of the carpenter (who approaches raising a child like building a house: the assembly of raw materials into a specific, planned structure) and the gardener (who approaches child rearing like cultivating a somewhat wild garden: plant the seeds, water them and give them sun, and see what happens). Once I was able to set aside the many gardeners who exert an impressive amount of control and structure over their domains, I liked this metaphor. Gopnik draws on extensive research (bother hers and other's) to support the idea that the carpentry approach to parenthood just doesn't work. It's not that it harms children, it's that the house is likely not going to turn out the way you envisioned it.

Much of what Gopnik tackles here is how babies, children, and adolescents learn. Her general point is that we are designed to learn like scientists: through trial and error and constant, hands-on experimentation. She is writing to parents, but the message is clear for educators as well; didactic instruction is not particularly effective. Our brains are capable of learning from direct instruction, but they aren't operating at their most absorbent or observant when doing so. Gopnik advocates that all learners--from babies to teens--need more time to freely explore the world around them, to get their hands dirty both literally and metaphorically, and to learn by doing.

One thing that has been weighing heavily on me as a new parent is how to integrate technology into my child's life. Gopnik has a chapter that deals with the perils of technology in a way that I appreciated. Her exact phrasing, which I love, is: "Inevitably, the year before you were born looks like Eden, and the year after your children were born looks like Mad Max." She appeases us anxious parents by pointing out that every technological advance, including the popularization of reading and books, has been met with outrage and pessimism, and none of them has destroyed culture or the human brain as predicted. In fact, they have, for the most part, enriched it. I'd heard this argument for radio and TV before, but never heard it traced back all the way to books. Gopnik points out that when literacy became commonplace, the neuroplasticity of the human brain allowed it to change in very real, tangible ways. We lost some things (memorizations of entire texts, intense specialization of knowledge), but gained an entire universe of knowledge. She argues that our children will develop a level of fluency with modern technology that will make their brains genuinely different from ours, but also competent in ways that ours are not.

Overall, this was a fascinating, accessibly written read. I found it especially compelling as a new parent, but I think it's a valuable and interesting read for anyone involved in any aspect of child development or learning.