My biggest adolescent annoyance was my mom’s unshakable trust in me. 

While my friends were pushed into engineering programs or into schools where their siblings went, my mom would say “Why should I tell you what to do when you always make great decisions on your own?”

Arggh!!! That drove me nuts! I wanted someone to GIVE ME THE ANSWER. To become a doctor or lawyer or dancer or writer or whatever. Just tell me!

The most advice she would offer was: “Zeva, just be an interesting person.” 

I couldn’t help laughing about my mom’s wisdom while listening to the developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik recently on the podcast On Being. 

Gopnik explains how “parenting” became a verb in the 1970s, and how over time parents have become more and more hands-on, helicoptering over their kids, bulldozing problems out of the way in order to architect lives to match a preconceived model of perfection. (If you need proof, have a look at the 50 people charged in the college admissions bribery scandal)

She calls this type of parenting “carpentering” mode, and thinks it’s a terrible invention. 

By trying to eliminate all risks and failures and control the outcome like a carpenter, smoothing and sanding the sides of a bookshelf, we wind up raising dependent, terrified humans who are ill-equipped for the evolving challenges of the world

Gopnik advocates for a different parenting model: the “gardening” variety. Instead of focusing on creating the perfect person, you focus on creating a loving, nurturing space where experimentation and discovery can thrive so that a diverse and resilient ecosystem emerges. She explains:

“Love’s purpose is not to shape our beloved’s destiny, but to help them shape their own. It isn’t to show them the way, but to help them find a path for themselves, even if the path they take isn’t one we would choose ourselves, or even one we would choose for them."

This all made me think not only about my childhood and the wild gardening my mom did with me, but also how these models apply to the self-discovery work we do when trying to get clear on our next professional path. 

Do we measure and predict what's going to happen with a specific image of perfection in mind, or do we sow our seeds in a loving environment and see how they can grow in unpredictably beautiful ways?
 

Whether or not you have kids, you were a kid, so what was the environment like for you?

Were you raised like a carpenter’s child or a gardener’s child?

More importantly how are you growing your life today? 

Are you creating a nurturing space for experimentation, discovery and variety?  Or are you measuring, chiseling, and sanding your angles down to a precise science? 

Let me know what comes up!

PS. My mom still never tells me what to do, but now I like it that way.! 

PPS. In my upcoming group online coaching program I’m slathering on some sunscreen, getting out my rubber boots, and heading into to garden to plant a lot of self-discovery seeds to see which ones spark your path forward. If you’d like to learn more about it, book a call with me here: