Gopnik: Gardeners

According to the psychologist Alison Gopnik, there is a good way to raise children, and there is a bad way to raise children. There is a way that hammers the child into a kind of personality. It has an idea of what a perfect person or childhood should be, and it wrenches the child through that vision. And then there is a way that allows the child to grow. In Gopnik's words, the difference is between being a gardener parent and a carpenter parent. A carpenter parent shapes the child, it controls, and it micromanages every aspect of the kid's life. It's the dad who drives his daughter to karate without asking her if she wants to go. It's the mum who interferes to build the toy the proper way, or the grandparent who steps in every second to prevent mistakes or accidents. In other words, the child is left to work, to play, and to live within these carefully controlled and narrow parameters. Gopnik argues that this is more likely to create a risk-averse, anxious, and dependent child who is less able to adapt to a world that doesn't go according to plan. Instead, the gardener parent provides a space for the child to fail, to experiment, and to discover themselves. It allows the child to choose an after-school club, to slap Lego together as they like, and to tinker and to wander freely in the woods. Gopnik's point isn't that a child shouldn't have boundaries. Kids need boundaries, and they need protecting. But her point is that a kid is not a sculpture to make, but a plant to let grow. And there's a million different ways that any one of us can actually grow.