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

by Alison Gopnik

Research in epigenetics shows how features of the environment, even quite subtle ones such as the quality of caregiving, can make genes active or inactive. For example, mice who are stressed early in life express certain genes differently. The same thing happens in human children. Genes vary, but children’s experiences also vary, and this influences how those genes are expressed.