Pamela Druckerman

I don't have a baby. I'm not sure I ever will. Despite this, I found this pleasant memoir intriguing and even somewhat useful. By the end, I myself was almost considering raising children. The French have a lovely culture surrounding parenthood that suggests adult life needn't end with the birth of a child. With proper boundaries in place, parents can continue to live their own lives while caring for their new young family. This, frankly gave me a lot of hope.

Rather than having many sets of competing and conflicting (and anxiety-inducing) parenting philosophies like in the U.S., parents in France seem to take a few basic things for granted. One of these things is that babies are people who are capable of learning things; another is that the baby must fit into the family, not be the center of it, so that adults still have "adult time." French parents also believe in the importance of teaching their kids to cope with frustration by having to wait show more for things; ultimately, this makes them "calmer and more resilient."

There is the idea of the "cadre," a strict framework within which children have a lot of freedom. Parents consider themselves to be teachers rather than police, and there is a word - "betise" - for minor acts of naughtiness that may be corrected but aren't deserving of punishment. French parents aim for "l'equilibre" (balance) but don't subsume their identities in their children, or feel as guilty as some American parents (particularly moms) do for working or taking time for themselves.

The chapters about sleeping and food provide an excellent guide that American parents can use just as well as French ones. The chapters about day care are less applicable, as there is no system in the U.S. that compares to the French creche (except the American military day care system). The U.S. doesn't even have a national standard for day care. Druckerman writes, "France has less feminist rhetoric, but it has many more institutions that enable women to work." show less

I feel like I had French parents. Actually, I grew up in Ohio, with parents who were an eclectic melange of would-be hippie born slightly too late, and stern Midwestern Germanicism. But somehow, at least according to Druckerman's assessment of French parenting, this appears to have given my mom a very French outlook.

Now all of a sudden I see why I felt out-of-sync sometimes with the preschool mom set. French mothers don't bring snacks to the park. They assume you'll eat at mealtimes. You show more don't have to eat all of your food, but you have to try a little of everything. They like activities, but they think a certain amount of boredom is good for a kid, and that, above all, parents need time to enjoy each other's company, and to do their own thing. These concepts seem like the stuff of my childhood, and I assumed, common sense. But Druckerman is right, they DO clash with the modern American way of parenting sometimes. And they shouldn't.

I loved this book. I loved watching Druckerman come of age as a parent. It was like having a secret window into what my mom must have done. It gives me hope for the future. show less

Finally! An American book on parenting that makes sense! Like Dominique in the book, I am Druckerman's doppelganger: raised in France, I now live and raise my child in North America. Like her, I was torn between what culturally made sense to me and what I was observing around me. Despite getting influenced by my environment (incipient guilt, lack of authority), I mostly stuck to my French roots, namely when it came to having time to myself, encouraging autonomy and explaining the whys and show more importance of limits.
Reading Druckerman was both a cultural validation and a reminder that - for the most part - it is possible to have well-behaved children. Her sense of humour, curiosity and honesty made the read all the more compelling and entertaining, an all around delight both for information and pleasure.
I highly recommend this book for mothers-to-be and mothers of young children. show less