The French Are Skinnier Than You, And Their Children Poop Gold

...and the frost has (mostly) abated!  We are happily back to a reasonable average of 40 degrees Fahrenheit, which means I can leave my house again without wearing several layers of pants.  Alas, this also means that I can no longer claim that the impressive leg hair I've been cultivating is for insulation purposes (hint: it's actually for lazy purposes.  And because AH is the only person who sees my legs in winter, and Lord knows he doesn't have any business calling me out on my hairiness).

Even with more cooperative weather, I am still spending much time indoors shackled to my computer, alternating reading Paradise Lost (no, the past seven years have not managed to make that book any more interesting) with procrastinating via the internets.  And something that has been popping up on my radar the past week or so has been this:

http://www.npr.org/books/titles/146199585/bringing-up-bebe-one-american-mother-discovers-the-wisdom-of-french-parenting#excerpt

Pamela Druckerman's book Bringing Up Bebe.  Seeing as how I generally roll my eyes and try to ignore the latest "Americans Blindly Fetishizing the French" craze (Eat like the French!  Dress like the French!  Pee in public places like the French!), I was going to blithely move past this and tell you all about my lovely trip to the Petite Palais.  Howevs, it has come up enough in conversation with expat friends here, as well as folks at home, that I feel compelled to put my two cents in (what else is a blog but the assumption that people will be interested in at least one of your two proffered cents?).

So, having not read the actual book (duh), but having read several interviews with the author, from reading the anecdotes that she relates, here's my impression on what she means by her "French parents are better at parenting than American parents" claim:  French parents expect their children to develop their independence earlier, and they are less afraid to scold and discipline their children. 

Now obviously, having not read the book, I'm sure I'm leaving out much subtlety and nuance.  But my general reaction was: yeah, sounds like the way my parents raised me.  I knew from an early age that it was rude to interrupt an adult conversation.  By the time I was four, I was being dragged to my older sister's swim meets on weekends, left with a small bag of Disney figurines to entertain myself for four hours in a natitorium.  And yet I don't think my parents ever served so much as a croissant for breakfast, so there's no chalking those expectations up to Continental influence (seriously, look up "red-blooded American male" in the dictionary, and I think there just might be a picture of my dad there).

I realize that I'm at a disadvantage in my observations of French parenting, having no broodlings myself as of yet.  But I do spend an awful lot of time on playgrounds and at school pick-ups (with the children I babysit for, not because I'm a creeper).  And I've seen a lot of things that I appreciate about general French parenting attitudes.  The author was spot on in her assessment that children are expected to run off and play, leaving the parents free to chat.  Not only is this nice for the parents, but, I think, beneficial to the children as well: I have yet to see a helicopter mom standing directly behind her seven-year-old on the playground, telling him to hold the bar with both hands.  However, while I'm all for children being encouraged to be independent, I've also seen this attitude manifested as: I don't care what my kid is doing as long as he's not bothering me.  My eight-year-old just pushed a two-year-old off of the slide?  He's running around beating that little girl with a stick?  Fine, as long as he confines his screeching to that side of the playground, and I can continue typing on my Blackberry in peace.

Another anecdote that the author relates is all of the quiet children that she sees sitting in restaurants.  And yes, like any other person with ears, I prefer to eat my lunch unaccompanied by a loud, rousing version of "The Wheels on the Bus," or that perennial favorite, "SHE'S TOUCHING ME, MOOOOOOOM!".  But again, I have seen this wonder of quiet children in public places achieved, not through the firm but authoritative "no" that Druckerman seems to believe is the main weapon in the French parent's arsenal, but through harsh, belittling words that leave child looking utterly defeated. 

Here, adults (any adults, not just parents) seem to have no qualms speaking harshly and rudely to children.  Example: the salope on the bus that took my sweet little five-year-old munchkin to task for DARING to remove a newspaper that she had set on a seat (yes, on a crowded bus, at rush hour, this woman thought that both she AND her newspaper were entitled to seats).  Luckily, her older brother told this woman off like it was nothing (bless his heart), since my furious and disapproving glare were apparently not sufficient.

Having said this, I don't want to give the impression that every French household has a chokey and that cranky French women routinely lift little girls up by their pigtails and shot-put them over fences.  I have met many loving, gentle French parents, as well as some truly wonderful French children that seem perfectly un-traumatized.  But I also take issue with the presentation of these parenting ideas: once again, the French are in on some great secret that Americans are too busy watching cat videos on youtube to pick up on.  Yes, French mothers eat as many baugettes as they want and still stay thin and chic, AND their children are quiet, polite, and are changing their own diapers by the time they're two months old.  But I think that if most Americans knew that the trade-off for being able to have your three-year-old sit quietly through a meal at a high-end restaurant was that, when he gets to school, teachers will announce the children's grades to the class and tear up assignments that weren't done to their specifications, I don't think most parents would be willing to make the trade.