The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children

by Alison Gopnik

One set of solutions is well known and straightforward and has already been adopted in most civilized countries. This is to recognize that providing resources for children is the responsibility not only of biological mothers or even biological mothers and fathers but also of the community at large. There is no mystery about the moral advantages or the good practical consequences of policies such as universal prenatal care, home visitors and nurses, paid parental leave for men and women, universal and free preschool, and direct subsidies to parents. These policies really do lead to better outcomes for children as a whole—in fact, this is one of the clearest results in all of social science. Multiple studies show that interventions that support parents in the early years have strong effects into adulthood.