Pamela Druckerman’s solution to these excesses is to emulate the French. In Bringing Up Bébé, she marvels at how French parents, mothers especially, resist what William Doherty calls (in his own book about marriage) “consumer parenting,” that insidious style of American child-rearing that makes it possible for a kid to lay claim to a mother’s or father’s attention twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
