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Some people say that parents don't matter, and that's not true at all. The irony is that we pay attention to all these things that don't matter, and not to what does matter, such as parents having enough resources to provide an environment where their children have both security and freedom.

Alison Gopnik

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Alison Gopnik
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: June 16
Psychologist
University Teacher
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
A. Gopnik
A Gopnik
Gopnik
Gopnik A
Gopnik A.
Enough
Environment
Children
Security
Things
Parent
People
Attention
Irony
Freedom
Provide
True
Resources
Doe
Pay
Matter
Parents

More quotes by Alison Gopnik

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Instead of just saying, I love my baby and I pick him up because he's adorable and it's so nice to cuddle with him, we practice attachment parenting. We let our children play outside and have age-appropriate freedoms and are labeled free-range parents.
Alison Gopnik
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The radio was an improvement on the telegraph but it didn't have the same exponential, transformative effect.
Alison Gopnik
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Developmental scientists like me explore the basic science of learning by designing controlled experiments.
Alison Gopnik
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We're in a culture where everything is either consumption or production, so child care is either a very, very bad-paying form of work or a very expensive luxury that you purchase. There isn't a good place in our picture of the world for what caregiving is about. Even teenage babysitters have sort of disappeared from the scene.
Alison Gopnik
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Owning our past allows us to own our future.
Alison Gopnik
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The more obsessively we focus on what a particular food is going to do for us, the less healthy we've become. Simple pleasures become complicated.
Alison Gopnik
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Scientists learn about the world in three ways: They analyze statistical patterns in the data, they do experiments, and they learn from the data and ideas of other scientists. The recent studies show that children also learn in these ways.
Alison Gopnik
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The largest and most powerful computers are still no match for the smallest and weakest humans.
Alison Gopnik
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Young children seem to be learning who to share this toy with and figure out how it works, while adolescents seem to be exploring some very deep and profound questions: how should this society work? How should relationships among people work? The exploration is: who am I, what am I doing?
Alison Gopnik
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There is a tension between our desire to get our kids to turn out a particular way versus letting them develop to be their own person. If there were a pill that would make my child turn out the way I wanted, I'm not sure I'd take it.
Alison Gopnik
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To support the people we care about is intrinsic, it is not instrumental. It's not something we do because we're hoping to get some other outcome.
Alison Gopnik
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Because we imagine, we can have invention and technology. It's actually play, not necessity, that is the mother of invention.
Alison Gopnik
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The best scientific way to discover if one factor influences another is to do a controlled experiment.
Alison Gopnik
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If you just got enough expertise and enough special techniques and read up enough, then you could shape a child into the kind of adult you wanted. There's almost this kind of competitive enterprise. That picture is the picture I think people often imply when they use the word parenting.
Alison Gopnik
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Adults tend to think they have much free will. Kids younger than six are less sure. They may be more realistic!
Alison Gopnik
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I'm culturally Jewish but, like most scientists, an atheist: I don't believe there's a God or supernatural world. Buddhism offers guidance on what to do in a world without God: It opines that truly being present in the world‚ experiencing and hanging out with your loved ones, provides all the significance you could want.
Alison Gopnik
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What happens when children reach puberty earlier and adulthood later? The answer is: a good deal of teenage weirdness.
Alison Gopnik
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Ineffective or weak brain connections are pruned in much the same way a gardener would prune a tree or bush, giving the plant a desired shape.
Alison Gopnik
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We provide a secure, stable space for children to grow up in, so children will be able to take risks and have adventures and do things that are unexpected. If there isn't a risk that your children can fail, then you haven't succeeded as a parent.
Alison Gopnik
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You read a bunch of books and you get a bunch of how-tos, and you take a bunch of classes and you learn a bunch of techniques. You set yourself goals and benchmarks. I think people have imported that into their experience of taking care of children.
Alison Gopnik