Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting

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Pamela Druckerman

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Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Living in Paris has allowed American journalist Druckerman (Lust in Translation) a riveting glimpse into a calmer, rational, sage way of raising children. With three children of her own, all born in Paris and happily bilingual, Druckerman wanted to find the key to forging the well-behaved youngsters she witnessed in parks and restaurants—infants who sleep through the night at two months, children with table manners, who don’t interrupt adults or eat between meals. It starts, apparently, with calm, sensible French mothers, who don’t become enormously self-indulgent during pregnancy, but quickly lose the baby fat after birth and rarely breast feed. The French health system helps by its generous maternal and child-care policies. Babies are treated as rational creatures, expected to “self-distract” in order to fall asleep (Druckerman calls the essential lapse in response time “La Pause”), and wait to eat when everybody else has their meals, four times a day, including the 4 p.m. sweet time called le gouter. Instead of rushing to satisfy or stimulate a child à la Americain, the French are keen on aiding kids to discover on their own, developing autonomy with the help of a cadre, or frame, which is firm but flexible. Citing Rousseau, Piaget, and Françoise Dolto, as well as scores of other parents, Anglophone or French, Druckerman draws compelling social comparisons, some dubious (e.g., Frenchwomen, unlike Americans, don’t expect their husbands to help much with housework, thus eliminating “tension and resentment”), others helpful (insisting that children try new foods at each meal to broaden their palates), but she is ever engaging and lively to read. (Feb.)

Library Journal

After moving to Paris and having a baby, former Wall Street Journal reporter Druckerman noticed that French women just weren't that uptight about child-rearing issues. Meanwhile, French children turned out to be well behaved but hardly repressed. Druckerman investigated and discovered that French parents are in some ways deeply strict and in some ways surprisingly permissive—no beat-the-odds enrichment classes at age three. Never mind French women staying chic or not getting fat, this is a really important work.

More Reviews (1) Fewer Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

The author of a cross-cultural study on infidelity turns her judicious eye to the differences between American and Parisian childrearing. When Druckerman (Lust in Translation, 2007) was laid off from her job as an international reporter for the Wall Street Journal, she willingly reunited with British journalist Simon, whom she'd met six months earlier. Their romance relocated her to his "two-room bachelor pad" in Paris where an expected culture clash awaited. An "Atkins-leaning vegetarian," Druckerman found particular discordance with Parisian cuisine and social norms. After getting pregnant, the author became obsessively worrisome and at odds with the structure of French childbirth and childrearing, though she was amazed at how inexplicably well-behaved and good-natured Parisian children seemed. Intent on uncovering the secret to French nurturing, she began some "investigative parenting," and the American expat waded through her daughter Bean's crucial developmental years fortified by what Parisian parents taught their own children. Druckerman's epiphanies include how months-old French babies sleep through the night via the "pause" technique and, soon after, are taught the art of patience. She demystifies the day-care "crèche" and preschool "maternelle," and how French mothers return to top physical shape (and their jobs) following childbirth. The author is a delightfully droll storyteller with an effortless gift of gab that translates well to the page. She backs up assumptions and associated explorations with historical parenting examples and comparisons that temper her skepticisms with an authoritative air. With twins on the way, Druckerman eventually acclimated to the guarded, good-natured bonhomie of Paris and struck a happy medium between French methods and her own parenting preferences. A quirky family saga of an American mother in Paris.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781594203336
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Publication date: 2/7/2012
Pages: 304
Sales rank: 698
Product dimensions: 6.10 (w) x 9.10 (h) x 1.30 (d)

Meet the Author

Pamela Druckerman is a former staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal, where she covered foreign affairs. She has also written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Marie Claire, and appeared on The Today Show and NPR's Morning Edition. Her previous book, Lust in Translation, was translated into eight languages. She has a master's degree in international affairs from Columbia. She lives in Paris.

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Average Rating 4

( 6 )

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Anonymous

Posted February 7, 2012

All parenting books end up being merely opinion

There are no parenting books out there that refine the skill set to a science. Parenting styles are different within any existing culture let alone different ones. This is merely one woman's take on her perception of the French. Take it for what it is.

8 out of 9 people found this review helpful.
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lezgirl0109

Posted February 24, 2012

Highly Recommended!!!! Must Read, Must Use!!!

I received this book from a friend when she found out we were expecting. I have not been able to put it down. I have tagged many pages and highlighted so much to go back to. I can't wait to but it to use.

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted February 7, 2012

Ridiculous

This book entails a ridiculous concept where French children are said to be better behaved than American children. The author is in a fantasy land and the information provided within the pages gives absolutely no scientific evidence of such occurrences of French children versus American children. This is purely an opinionated book from an individual who lives in France and does not have a complete view of the world as it is today.

1 out of 56 people found this review helpful.
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ivyNYC

Posted May 14, 2012

As a European living in the US and getting ready to become a mom

As a European living in the US and getting ready to become a mom for the first time I find this book to be very interesting and useful. Of course it's a somewhat subjective point of view, but so is any parenting advice. Lots of great examples and funny anecdotes! My husband who is also European and who has plenty of parenting experience raising a child (from his previous marriage) the American way couldn't put the book down. He kept saying "I wish I realized that the first time around but now it's too late".

This book should be a must read for every American (or living in the US) parent! Let's take the best from both sides of the Atlantic to avoid being surrounded by child-kings.
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librarianDS

Posted April 27, 2012

A revolutionary book!

This is a revoluationary book and I hope it starts a revolution.
I had my children between the late '50's and the mid '60's, not an
enlightened period for good parenting. Parents were still spanking
their children for non-lifethreateing behavior, were hugely compete-
tive about their achievents, and nonworking women (of which I was one)
had few topics for discussion except child behavior and new recipes.

I was hugely out of step and I now feel vindicated. I'm the mother
who brought a folding chaise and a book to the fence-enclosed
playground and said "Find me when you're ready to go." I'm the
mother who "paused" when they cried at 3 AM, had them off that bottle
by 1 month and off the evening bottle by 3 months. I'm the mother
whose child sat quietly on the floor by my feet at kindergarten
roundup while virtually every other child in the room was climbing the
furniture and pulling books off the shelves. I was also the only
mother I knew who had harnasses installed in the backseat to keep
my toddlers safe - infant carseats were unknown at that time.

All of this was instinct. I had no support from anyone except my
husband who benefited as much as I did from an organized household.
How did I figure this out? It seemed common sense to adjust the
baby to the family rhythm rather than the family to the baby. We
were all happier for it.
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WendySue32

Posted April 26, 2012

more from this reviewer

Good book. I wouldn't give it as a gift but I'm not bummed that

Good book. I wouldn't give it as a gift but I'm not bummed that I spent the money to buy it. A lot of this book is a bit over the top on trying to show the differences in parenting because in the end, it's not about who does it better French or American or British... There were some very interesting insights into the culture of raising kids and I enjoyed that. I think that a lot of the differences in the culture of raising children stems from location, direct location as in city or suburb, farm or subdivision. If I lived on a country road in France next to rolling hills and farms, my kids would likely have more freedom to roam and grow into independent beings.
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Anonymous

Posted March 2, 2012

No text was provided for this review.

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Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting

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All parenting books end up being merely opinion

Highly Recommended!!!! Must Read, Must Use!!!

Ridiculous

As a European living in the US and getting ready to become a mom

A revolutionary book!

Good book. I wouldn't give it as a gift but I'm not bummed that