“It is a recognized fact that this is an age of maximum effort...”

Maria Montessori, Education for a New World

As adults, we often feel like there is not enough time. We are striving to squeeze all our tasks into the day. We must be efficient and quick as we pick up children from school, cook dinner, prepare lunchboxes, give baths, do laundry, not to mention meet the demands of our career. Our work has external goals and visible results, whether within the home, within the workplace, or within society. Our adult lives run smoothly when we decrease effort and increase productivity. The adult abides by the Law of Maximum Efficiency.

…but the child? The child’s work is internal, often invisible. The child’s work is the construction of a whole human being! Their work is not about productivity; the product of their work is their own little self. It does not follow the norms and needs of society, it follows the laws of child development, and the purpose of the work is the working itself. The child abides by the Law of Maximum Effort. It is messy, inefficient and slow, and we must protect it at all costs. 

“The child… uses an immense amount of energy over an unsubstantial end, and he spends, not only driving energy, but intensive energy in the exact execution of every detail.”  -Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood

Before we address this apparent contradiction, let us revise our understanding of the term work. Montessori draws her definition of work from the global human tendency to seek meaningful, purposeful activity. For the adult, the products of this work span infrastructure, technology, policy, art, theory, literature. Whether it is our career, housework, hobby, or side-hustle, the characteristics of adult work remain. 

So why does Montessori call the child’s activity work and not play. She uses the term work out of honor and respect. What looks to adults to be play is the child constructing their personality, developing language, organizing information, understanding themselves as part of a community, integrating their sensory experiences, building physical strength, equilibrium and coordination.

“Grown-ups think of play as a purposeless occupation that keeps children happy and out of mischief, but actually when children are left to play by themselves very little of their activity is purposeless.” 
- Maria Montessori, Maria Montessori Speaks to Parents

Their work does not care about timelines or schedules, products or outcomes. They pause to observe the caterpillar on the vine when it is already “time to go,” they glide back-and-forth across the monkeybars when they “should be in the car,” they scrub dishes that are not dirty when you “need to start the dishwasher,” they tie and untie and tie their shoes again when “we should start the hike,” they practice equilibrium on the curb when you “need to get the groceries to the car.” They are not being difficult or obstinate or troublesome. They are following their calling, the calling of the human species: self-construction and adaptation to the world. Only through experiences can this creation unfold. “The child is the builder of man… these characteristics are not inborn, they must be acquired by the child through contact with the environment, through repeated experiences and through activity.” - Maria Montessori, The 1946 London Lecture

Montessori honors the importance of play by using the term work. It is in these opposing laws, that of maximum efficiency and that of maximum effort, that the adult and the child come into conflict. So how do we resolve this conflict and preserve the sanctity of the child’s work while also meeting logistical day-to-day needs? There are three ways: we prepare the environment, we prepare the adult, and we stop applying the standards of adult work to the child’s work. 

To prepare the environment, we first create space for the child, that “forgotten citizen,” who is asked to exist in a world built for adults. We offer child-sized furniture, we give them access to what they need (water, food, cleaning tools, toys), and materials that suit those needs. We create an emotionally and psychologically safe environment where we model the expectation, we are friendly with error, we take care of what we use, we make sure every living thing is safe. We offer freedom within limits, and we do not offer more freedom than a child is ready for.

The preparation of the adult requires us to speak slowly, move carefully, offer time whenever possible. Montessori says we must rid ourselves of insecurities, hidden agendas and examine our biases. We must practice self-awareness, introspection and reflection. Before we act, we must be prepared to quietly observe. The characteristics of the prepared adult are patience, humility, reliability, sense of humor, respectful, and trustworthy. 

Lastly, we must shift our expectations and standards. Adults often see children as an extension of themselves rather than as their own person. When we work to create a mold in our image, we are working as a “Carpenter Parent,” in the words of Alison Gopnik, a developmental psychologist at UC Berkley. Carpenters work with a goal in mind: they are building a chair. 

“In the parenting model, being a parent is like being a carpenter. You should pay some attention to the kind of material you are working with, and it may have some influence on what you try to do. But essentially your job is to shape that material into a final product that will fit the scheme you had in mind to begin with…precision and control are her allies.”  - Alison Gopnik, The Gardener and The Carpenter

The “Gardener Parent,” on the other hand, rids themselves of expectations and creates a space where the child can develop freely. The gardener brings in the best soil, they water when it is hot, they cover the bed when it is cold, they plant the seeds they love, they observe the volunteers that pop up. Gardeners have a plan, they take great care, but rarely do things unfold as expected. 

“The poppy comes up neon orange instead of pale pink, the rose that was supposed to climb the fence stubbornly remains a foot from the ground, black spot and rust and aphids can never be defeated. 

And yet the compensation is that our greatest horticultural triumphs and joys also come when the garden escapes our control, when the weedy Queen Anne’s lace unexpectedly shows up in just the right place in front of the dark yew tree, when the forgotten daffodil travels to the other side of the garden and bursts out among the blue forget-me-nots, when the grapevine that was supposed to stay demurely hitched to the arbor runs scarlet riot through the trees.”  - Alison Gopnik, The Gardener and The Carpenter

The child is a whole garden. Full of surprise, and mess and repetition and mistakes and effort and independence. When we prepare to work in the child’s garden, we, too, get dirty and messy and wet and muddled. And we, too, discover the beauty of surprise, the richness of the unexpected, the blooms we never imagined. We become witness to all the life that springs up, spontaneous and stunning and free.