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I realised as I read the sleep bit though that that's what I've done with DS2 - not rushed to his side every time he whimpers, allowing him time to self-settle, more observing him than disturbing him, etc.
There were a lot of positive points too (those that either I or the author found positive). There were all those good bits about French parenting like recognising but allowing children to make 'betises' (little naughty acts that don't warrant an over-reaction), encouraging children to develop a broad appreciation for different foods and the parents not giving up ALL of their selves/time to their children (though I do note, somewhat uneasily, that in French films where adults are the main characters, we may not realise at all that they are parents, or if we learn this, the children are rarely even SEEN, let alone have any part in the story). However, this does not mean they are not under pressure. They may accept the pressures of their society, which are very different from ours, but that is not the same as not feeling them. For example, weight control is a national obsession among the French. Not having regained your figure three months after giving birth is considered shameful. Literally. French husbands, doctors, relatives, friends, all feel that a woman who has not lost her pregnancy weight by three months is failing her duty as a wife and woman and will tell her so. You couldn't do that over here. The parents would be up to the school complaining about the teacher in a flash," said one British friend. Infuriating. But once I got past the crazy, indulgent American parent v. calm, wise, strict French parent nonsense, I could enjoy this author's engaging, witty writing. Obviously I disagree with the premise that the French are better parents. Sorry, a 2-month-old sleeping through the night is not uniquely French. Neither is an obedient, well-mannered child. The author's view of parents in Paris, as well as her research of numerous French parenting ideas, is extensive. Had she applied her journalistic skills to discovering what we American parents are doing across the Atlantic, instead of relying on what she sees wealthy parents doing in a park in New York City, or even worse, what she read in What to Expect When You're Expecting, she would have understood more of her American subject matter. We don't snatch up our infants at every tiny noise they make. We don't allow our four-year-olds to crawl under the table and bite our hostess during dinner. And I've never seen a parent slide down the slide with a child. I read this book and identified with a lot of it, it was (mostly) how I bought my children up and my daughter was a Nou Nou in Paris and it was how she looked after 5 children under 7.Well it appealed to me because my DH and I are an Anglo-American couple (like the writer and her husband), who've lived in both the US and the UK and I've often wondered whether there is a better way to approach certain aspects of child-rearing. So to get a different perspective and understand how another nation does things was interesting. I have been a poor sleeper for years so am quite up on sleep cycles etc and can see that what she says in regard to getting babies to sleep through the night makes perfect sense. Of course both existing family members and new ones have to adapt to one another, so for example we now have dinner at 7.30 rather than 9 because DS (2) would be too tired by then. But we offer him the same quality food and interaction as we offer one another: for example, even when he had to have baby food, I would not offer him anything I was not prepared to eat myself. If DH is not tired and wants to read, he does, so if DS one night is less tired and wants to read a bit longer, we read a bit longer, etc.. Eliane Glaser frames it as the cult of the perfect mother, elsewhere it’s “intensive mothering” or “conscientious cultivation”. However it is described, it boils down to the belief that every moment must have conspicuous educational or emotional value. As far as I’ve read, it is a largely western construct and is not only bad for women, but also bad for children, who should be allowed to discover the world for themselves or through play with other children. It manifests in the competitive obsession with baby classes, where everything is a learning opportunity (see also the baby sensory movement). Hence, perhaps, my (in hindsight) insane decision to take a three-month-old premature infant to baby swimming, an activity to which he objected to in the strongest terms. What was I thinking? And why did I feel so guilty when we quit? Our eldest daughter is 6 going on 16 at the moment, as are most of her school friends in the UK, and the other mums and I are often talking about the attitude we get from them. On a recent holiday to France I had the exact same conversation with a French friend about her 6 year old daughter. It’s the same, people!
Then she demanded to be released from her high chair so she could run around the restaurant, which opened out on to the port.The book is also filled with inaccuracies. The supposedly French and superior method of raising children described by the author is so obvious and indistinguishable from what many American parenting books suggest. Here’s an example – her revelation about getting French babies to sleep through the night is “La Pause”, which is just to not respond as soon as your baby makes a noise. I haven’t read any books that suggest you do this and I don’t know any parents that do this. Either the author has a very small and odd set of friends which are coloring her perspective or she wrote this as an amusing work of fiction. The author supposedly quotes the well known book What to Expect as evidence of how neurotic American parenting books are except I read that book and did not recognize any of the ridiculous quotes. Maybe she has a copy from the 50s. She also talks about how the French methods of raising children are based in science and American ones aren’t, citing circadian rhythms as one example of this. I don’t know what parenting books she is reading, but they are not any of the mainstream ones that I have been reading because they are almost all written by doctors or at the very least, cite medical rationale for their assertions. I really can’t believe the author is a journalist. I could go on and on with examples of how poorly written and comically inaccurate this book is, but I have two babies and useful books to read, so I won’t waste my time. Lise Fuccellaro believes British children may be less disciplined than their French cousins, but says they often grow up to be nicer adults: "French children may be better brought up in the strictest sense, but they grow up to be very individualistic," she said.
Even the children who were Bean’s age were sitting happily in their high chairs, waiting for their food or eating fish and vegetables. Bean only seemed interested in anything fried.”
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When I spoke to my French friends on the phone, I realised they never had to rush off because the kids asked for something. There are far too many references to one extreme example of American parenting gone wrong and far too many examples of a few observations of French parenting gone right. Research led me to resolve that I had somehow absorbed what Judith Warner calls “total-reality motherhood”. In other words, it’s the cultural notion that motherhood is supposed to constitute your entire life’s work, with all other aspects of your identity sacrificed on the altar of 360-degree parenting. It seems this pernicious ideology began in the 1990s but reached fever pitch at the turn of the millennium. These days it afflicts my generation through bastardised, social media filtered versions of attachment theory and gentle parenting philosophies. To quote one article: “Now mothers were always to be ‘on’, engaged in relationships with their children that were at once kinesthetic, tirelessly management oriented, and unrelenting in their emotional solicitations.”
Thanks to the French approach, Pamela says all her children are such gourmet eaters they happily eat delicacies such as goose liver pate and Camembert. There is so much information now on healthy eating I don't know how restaurants in the UK get away with offering kids' meals as they are invariably fried junk. The problem I found with French schooling was that children are not encouraged to debate, to disagree, to have a voice or an opinion. The teacher is right, even when he/she is wrong. I have an American friend in France whose half American/half French daughter goes to a state school; when her English teacher wrote the word “Teatcher” on the board she raised her hand to tell her that it is in fact “Teacher” and was told to be quiet. 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.Fascinating... gripping... extremely funny... A desperately needed corrective to received wisdom about child-rearing and what having children is supposed to do to a woman's sense of self. I loved it. It made me want to move to Paris The Sunday Times As she peers into the world of Gallic child-rearing, she discovers that not only do French children behave better at the dinner table, they also seem to sleep better, learn good manners and are less prone to shrieking tantrums.
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