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

by Alison Gopnik

Until the nineteenth and even the twentieth century, most people lived and worked on farms, or in small local workshops or businesses. In 1830, 70 percent of American children lived in families with two parents who both worked on a farm; only 15 percent lived in a “nuclear family” with a working father and a stay-at-home mom. In 1930, only 30 percent of children had two farming parents, and 55 percent were in nuclear families. In the 1970s, the composition of families began to change again, and by 1989 less than a third of children were being raised in “nuclear families”—most children were raised by two parents who both worked or by a single parent who did. The percentage of children in one-parent families has continued to rise. By 2014 more than 30 percent of children were being raised by single parents.