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

by Alison Gopnik

On a farm, fathers and mothers, and families more generally, both work and care for children at the same time. It was only when home and work became separated that caregiving and work became separated as well. The flaws of the stay-at-home-mother solution are, of course, obvious by now. Women don’t get to experience the satisfactions of a career. It makes both women and children entirely dependent on fathers, and so profoundly vulnerable. And at the same time it isolates fathers from children and child-rearing. These flaws become especially apparent when divorce is widely available, as it should be for independent reasons. Children are especially likely to suffer if the only way to get them the resources they need is legal pressure on an embittered ex-husband. Since at least the 1970s the stay-at-home-mother model has crumbled. Partly, this is the result of the women’s movement, as women have rightly acted to gain more autonomy. It is also partly the result of economic forces. The average family income has been maintained only because women have gone to work. But other institutions haven’t emerged to take its place. This has had disastrous effects for children, particularly low-income children. In a foraging or farming society children had extended families to take care of them. In a traditional “nuclear family” they at least had a couple who were both dedicated to providing their resources and care. But in America right now children often end up depending on a single woma...