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 of the most striking examples of the value of play, for adults and for children, that I have ever seen comes in the great 1920s silent film Nanook of the North. The film traces the life of an Inuit hunter, Nanook, and his family as they struggle to survive in one of the harshest climates on earth, with only their own skill at hunting and gathering to sustain them. At one point in the movie Nanook makes a little toy sled for his adorable toddler son. Father and child have a grand romp in the snow, familiar to any Canadian parent like me. This may seem unremarkable, but think about it for a minute. Consider just how much of the gross domestic product of that barely subsisting family, in time and materials, went into building and playing with that sled. What Nanook knew, though, was that there was no better investment in a future life than the playful exploration of snow and ice. In the richest country on earth we still haven’t learned that lesson.