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

by Pamela Druckerman

how do parents build this cadre? The process of constructing it does occasionally seem harsh. But it isn’t just about saying no and establishing that “it’s me who decides.” Another way that French parents and educators build the cadre is simply by talking a lot about the cadre. That is, they spend a lot of time telling their kids what’s permissible and what’s not. All this talk seems to will the cadre into existence. It starts to take on an almost physical presence, much like a good mime convinces you there’s actually a wall. This ongoing conversation about the cadre is often very polite. Parents say please a lot, even to babies. (They require politeness, too, of course, since they understand what’s being said.) In defining limits for kids, French parents often invoke the language of rights. Rather than saying “Don’t hit Jules,” they typically say, “You don’t have the right to hit Jules.” This is more than a semantic difference. It feels different to say it this way. The French phrasing suggests that there’s a fixed and coherent system of rights, which both children and adults can refer to. It also makes clear that the child does have the right to do other things.