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

by Alison Gopnik

Smaller families, greater mobility, and older first-time parents radically altered the learning curve. For most of human history, people grew up in large extended families with many children. Most parents had extensive experience of taking care of children before they had children themselves. And they had extensive opportunities to watch other people, not just their own parents, but grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles and older cousins, take care of children. Those traditional sources of wisdom and competence—not quite the same as expertise—have largely disappeared. Parenting how-to books, websites, and speakers are appealing because they seem to fill that gap.