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Bringing up Bébé
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The secret behind France's astonishingly well-behaved children. When American journalist Pamela Druckerman has a baby in Paris, she doesn't aspire to become a "French parent." French parenting isn't a known thing, like French fashion or French cheese. Even French parents themselves insist they aren't
… More »The secret behind France's astonishingly well-behaved children. When American journalist Pamela Druckerman has a baby in Paris, she doesn't aspire to become a "French parent." French parenting isn't a known thing, like French fashion or French cheese. Even French parents themselves insist they aren't doing anything special. Yet, the French children Druckerman knows sleep through the night at two or three months old while those of her American friends take a year or more. French kids eat well-rounded meals that are more likely to include braised leeks than chicken nuggets. And while her American friends spend their visits resolving spats between their kids, her French friends sip coffee while the kids play. Motherhood itself is a whole different experience in France. There's no role model, as there is in America, for the harried new mom with no life of her own. French mothers assume that even good parents aren't at the constant service of their children and that there's no need to feel guilty about this. They have an easy, calm authority with their kids that Druckerman can only envy. Of course, French parenting wouldn't be worth talking about if it produced robotic, joyless children. In fact, French kids are just as boisterous, curious, and creative as Americans. They're just far better behaved and more in command of themselves. While some American toddlers are getting Mandarin tutors and preliteracy training, French kids are- by design-toddling around and discovering the world at their own pace. With a notebook stashed in her diaper bag, Druckerman-a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal -sets out to learn the secrets to raising a society of good little sleepers, gourmet eaters, and reasonably relaxed parents. She discovers that French parents are extremely strict about some things and strikingly permissive about others. And she realizes that to be a different kind of parent, you don't just need a different parenting philosophy. You need a very different view of what a child actually is. While finding her own firm non , Druckerman discovers that children-including her own-are capable of feats she'd never imagined.
« Lessone American mother discovers the wisdom of French parenting
French children don't throw food -- Are you waiting for a child? -- Paris is burping -- Doing her nights -- Wait! -- Tiny little humans -- Day care? -- Bébé au lait -- The perfect mother doesn't exist -- Caca boudin -- Double entendre -- I adore this baguette -- You just have to taste it -- It's me who decides -- Let him live his life -- The future in French.
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Last year’s go-to parenting book was Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, about parenting the Chinese way; this year we travel to France to see how les chic mamans do it. While living in Paris author Pamela Druckerman, former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, never paid much attention to how French children behaved, until she had one of her own. She quickly became aware that while eating out was an exercise in outracing tantrums for she and her husband, other toddlers at French restaurants were calm. Serene even. And eating whatever was placed in front of them, not screaming for McNuggets des poulet. She investigates further. She encounters a mother embarrassed that her infant was not yet sleeping through the night – at four months old – because the majority of French infants do so by two months. Some of the techniques Drukerman describes may sound harsh or neglectful – pausing five or ten minutes before attending a crying baby, for instance – but she becomes convinced that it is not about selfishly willing your baby to go back to sleep so you can get more shut eye, it is (and this is simplifying her message) about observing children simply being children and letting them work certain things out on their own. This gives French parents time for themselves too, without becoming maman-taxis, human taxis for their over-activitied children. In fact, since the government subsidises daycare, French parents often hire babysitters to do the activity-taxiing, while they take time for themselves. It sounds very civilized but the key phrase, in case you missed it, was “government subsidizes daycare”. North American parents do not often have that particular luxury, but Druckerman argues that they do have the luxury of limiting the number of activities their children do, so both parents and kids are not run ragged by the end of a day or week. As for the guilt that wracks every imperfect parent, the French cope with that simply by acknowledging that the “perfect” parent does not exist. And lest this sound like Druckerman is, in fact, the thing that does not exist, she relates in some detail how hard it became to be a chic maman Francaise when her twin sons were born. As it turns out like most things in life, it is all about moderation and finding a balance that works pour vous.
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Add a Commentprobably the best parenting book i've read! laugh out loud funny , too!
Profoundly important book for new mothers to read. Provides perspective on two ways of rearing children, North American on the one hand, and French, on the other. There will be no doubt as to which system is the better. I wish that all parents could read this book and that it had been available when I was raising. My family.
I thought this book was both useful and fun to read. It's well written and humorous. Some of her anecdotes poking fun at the archetypes of obsessive American parenting are pretty funny. I like that she points out all the good about "French" parenting without holding it up as some ideal perfection. If you feel, as I do, that we obsess too much about the most minute parenting decisions, this book is an empowering read. I'd also recommend "Free Range Kids"
A friend who raised an infant in France recommended this book to me and it has turned out to be the best thing I've read so far in preparation for parenthood. (It may actually be the only parenting book I read more than a few pages of.) The author presents anecdotes and historical facts about childrearing philosophies in France, the US and elsewhere, in a humorous and non-judgmental way that actually makes me feel empowered to make reasonable choices based on my child's unique nature, rather than adopting an 'approved' parenting philosophy prior to birth as we often feel pressured to do in the US.
You would have to have a preconceived biased against French culture and/or an alternative style of parenting not to be delighted this book. And truthfully, the parenting methods related here aren't all that alternative. Traditional is probably a better word. Where American parents tend to be obsessively hands-on, the French are decidedly hands-off. The author, Pamela Druckerman, is an American expatriate, married to an Englishman, and living in Paris. She is in a unique position to observe, and often marvel at, the differences of both countries. Druckerman's writing style is so appealing here—replete with that right amount of sympathetic humor—that you look forward to tagging along all the way to the end.
One of the best books on parenting that I've read--it's a well told account of raising her kids in France and how parenting is different there than in the U.S.
Opening up a book on parenting is always an adventure. _Bringing up Bebe_ is an enlightening view of an American woman's interpretation of the French method. Drawn in both broad strokes and in detailed real-life examples, I found the book to both fascinating and perplexing. Drucker nicely illustrates the differences between the French and the Americans with respect to pregnancy and raising babies and children. There were a number of eye-opening observations about French mothers that I look forward to trying out with my own children someday.
When American journalist Pamela Druckerman and her British husband Simon decide to settle in Paris and start their family, they begin to notice some big differences between American children and French children. It all starts to dawn on Druckerman when she and Simon take their eighteen-month-old toddler on vacation. As their little girl loses her mind while out for dinner at a coastal restaurant, Druckerman notices the French children are remarkably well behaved and even eating their vegetables! By researching French parenting experts and interviewing parents on both sides of the Atlantic, Druckerman delves into the major issues and stages of raising young children from the French perspective. From hot topics like breastfeeding, early child care, disciplining children, and more – Druckerman offers the French view which may seem like a dream come true for North American parents. Told in a humorous, storytelling manner, Bringing Up Bébé illustrates that values surrounding parenting are in many ways a cultural construct, and having alternatives will be appreciated by many parents and may be extremely beneficial to the entire family.
Interesting to learn about other approaches to child rearing. Especially liked the references to the child rearing manuals equivalent to Dr. Spock and how they reflect a very different cultural bias. Sois sage!
I really enjoyed this book and found it rather insightful. My own children seem to have been brought up with a cross between French and American child rearing trends. Strange. For me the only downside of the book was the personality of the author. I found her to be both naive and judgemental. As an American brought up outside the US, I can advise her that if you don't want to bring up a French child, don't bring her up in France.