What's it like to be a baby? It's like being in love in Paris for the first time after you've had three double espressos.
Alison GopnikRead
I've had three of my own children and spent my professional life thinking about children. And yet I still find my relation to my children deeply puzzling.
Interpretation
Parenting is complex and often confounding, even for those who study it.
In this quote, Alison Gopnik reflects on the intricate and sometimes perplexing relationship that parents have with their children. Despite her personal experience as a mother and her professional focus on child development, she acknowledges that understanding this dynamic remains a challenging and mysterious endeavor, illustrating the complexities of familial bonds and the psychological aspects of parenting.
In practice
This quote can be used in a parenting workshop to illustrate the complexities of raising children.
What's it like to be a baby? It's like being in love in Paris for the first time after you've had three double espressos.
Ours is an age of pedagogy. Anxious parents instruct their children more and more, at younger and younger ages, until they're reading books to babies in the womb.
Adults often assume that most learning is the result of teaching and that exploratory, spontaneous learning is unusual. But actually, spontaneous learning is more fundamental.
All in all, 18 individuals from my family are missing, including my six brothers and my mother, my brothers' wives, my nephews and nieces.
If I were to give advice to young people, high-achieving young people for example, Iβd have to say, donβt neglect your family. Politics is important, sitting at the head table is glamorous. Traveling around the world, trying to do something for world peace was wonderful. But family and friends and faith are what really matter in life. And I know that. I see it so clearly now.
Women without children are also the best of mothers,often, with the patience,interest, and saving grace that the constant relationship with children cannot always sustain. I come to crave our talk and our daughters gain precious aunts. Women who are not mothering their own children have the clarity and focus to see deeply into the character of children webbed by family. A child is fortuante who feels witnessed as a peron,outside relationships with parents by another adult.
I truly have a village supporting me. My son has godmothers, godfathers, grandparents and so many others in his life who love him as much as I do. They're there for both of us. I may not have a mate or husband, but I'm definitely not a single parent.
I grew up in a family of strong women and I owe any capacity I have to understand women to my mother and big sister. They taught me to respect women in a way where I've always felt a strong emotional connection to women, which has also helped me in the way I approach my work as an actor.
I just hope I remember to tell my kids that they are as happy as I look in my old photographs. And I hope that they believe me.
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