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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.
Alison Gopnik
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Interpretation

What this quote means

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.

Themes

ParentingChildrenRelationshipsUnderstandingComplexity

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a parenting workshop to illustrate the complexities of raising children.

More from Alison Gopnik

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.
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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.
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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.
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