(UK Title: French Children Don't Throw Food: Parenting Secrets From Paris)
The Penguin Press (US)/Doubleday (UK) - 2012
284 pages
When I mentioned to some people that I was reading this book, I got the occasional strange look. This was mostly because I'm childless and, really, who reads a parenting memoir in the first place unless they have or are about to have children, right? Well, apparently people who see the author on Mother's Day on MSNBC.
Pamela Druckerman is an American reporter, formerly of The Wall Street Journal, who gets laid off and starts are relationship with a British journalist she met a few months earlier who lives in Paris. They fall for each other, marry, and lives in Paris while she writes her first book.
In the course of this, she has her first child, a girl, affectionately named "Bean." As she can write her book anywhere and her and her husband live life in France, they decide to raise the child in Paris. This is not without some trepidations. Her own mother lives on another continent and the French routinely send their children to what an American would consider day care..and not just any day care, but one often subsidized by the state! Yes, her child will be bilingual, but are there drawbacks to this?
This book seemed almost more a memoir than a how-to on child-rearing. This is not to say that there are not good bits of usable information in it! Do you want your baby to sleep through the night (or, possibly more importantly, let your newborn let you sleep through the night? This book has an explanation on how that can happen. What's the French view on what and how to feed your child? Yup, covered.
The book comes off far from being preachy. The book is a good comparison to what we are told American parenting is currently like (not having a child or that many friends who are new parents, I cannot say for certain), and is a very good comparison piece to Amy Chua's famous and controversial Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (who, gave "advance priase" for this book, despite the styles of parenting being so different from what I remember in Tiger Mother. I've heard this book called "controversial" yet don't really see a big controversy. Despite the New York Times's seemingly negative, almost Franc-phobic review, even if you don't have children or aren't going to have them, I'd say this is worth your time to read,
Rating: 4 out of 5
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6 comments:
OTO,
Okay, I'll bite, mon ami: Does this book offer some insights into what Americans are doing wrong when raising their kids? Is it a cultural thing with us? Do we view things differently than the French? Or are American parents too permissive and the French just use common sense, like being consistent, imposing bed times, not saying "yes" when they want to say "no" etc?
My friends who have raised children insist that you cannot be a child's friend and be a good parent at the same time. In other words, a parent must often disappoint a child or make the child unhappy. You have to be strict and impose some discipline for the child to turn out all right. They tell me a child needs structure and, left to their own desires, children will make themselves and their parents miserable.
As noted, it currently says "1 comment" instead of "1 comments." I know how much that annoys you! Hopefully it will continue to say "2 comments" when I post.
It does seem to give some ideas about what Americans are doing wrong and a slight critique of the helicopter parent syndrome.
Your friends who have raised children sound like they must be French. From the book, the French parents will be very strict to children about certain things (such as saying hello and goodbye to guests), times children eat, but more lax about things like when the child learns to read, what they study and do to play.
OTO,
Thanks for the reply. Speaking from my own experience, my parents insisted on mealtimes at designated hours, bedtime at a certain hour, and we were always told to say hello and goodbye to guests when we entered and left the house. That last observation was just a common courtesy. I was always taught to introduce myself to someone who I had not previously met. I loved my parents but they were never considered to be my friends. I had friends and I would, on occasion, complain to these friends about my parents. :-)
I'm quite intrigued by this book and am glad to hear it comes off more as a memoir than a parenting book. I hope to read it soon, as it finally came in at the library for me!
I wonder if OTO has any children?
OTO has been silent lately. I wonder if the Olympics has anything to do with the silence?
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