Bringing Up Bebe Discussion discussion
This topic is about
Bringing Up Bébé
Why Does Bringing Up Bebe Touch Such a Nerve?
date
newest »
newest »
We're not as homogenous as the French. We're a bigger, more diverse country--in population and in geography. So yes, there are more voices. I think that's a good thing all around. What unifies the US, I think, is the ability to think beyond dominant cultural norms. So where the French fight immigration and change tooth and nail, we welcome it. The authors of our child-rearing books are immigrants or children of immigrants (Amy Chua, for example). These are people who are looking for new answers, not people who are content with the status quo. It's the cacophony that makes us great.
So yes, we search. But the search is all good. It opens our minds.
Mod
I think in the US we tend to equate choice with freedom.
Perhaps there are some simple, straightforward commonsense ideas that benefit children and adults as well. But we are all burdened by weighing through a sea of contradictory voices/ choices. Add to that our general ambivalence about authority - other people's and our own -and I think that's a potent recipe for stressed out kids and parents.
I completely agree with you Laura. We equate choice with freedom. You see it all the time with weight loss too. So many choices, so many programs...and they usually leave you feeling confused, overwhelmed, and exhausted.
But when it comes to parenting (and children) isn't choice exactly freedom? The freedom to reject what others consider proper behavior in favor of your own personal values? If you hold to your values, you won't be overwhelmed, because you'll reject what others believe if it doesn't ring true to you. Do you want a child who behaves well in restaurants or do you want a child who's going to invent Facebook? I'm not sure these two values can go hand-in-hand.
Of course, I have a child with blue hair, so I suppose I'm coming from an extreme view of child-rearing. But my point is, the happy, successful children I raised would be shunned in many cultures. (Heck, they're sometimes shunned in my upscale suburban American town, but who cares? We chose and we stand by our values.)
And Laura, your point about authority is excellent and I think the crux of the issue. I blogged about it here: Bringing Up Bob.
Yes, Diana you have the freedom to choose how to bring up your children, but as a new mother myself and a professional (BS in Early Childhood Education) Bringing Up Baby is the best parenting book I've read.In my professional opinion, the French, as seen in Druckerman's book, have the developmental aspect of children down pat and parents in many other countries, including America, should take that away from the book.
Examples include:
Letting children learn to self-soothe at an early age
Setting limits, but having freedom within (my favorite example was the bedtime routine. You need to be in your bedroom, but you can do whatever you want in there)
Limiting extra-curricular activities to one a semester
Having the "you just have to taste it" rule and not catering to what the child wants to eat
Letting children play on their own and not intervening (something that is very hard for almost all the parents of my students)
That's just a few from the top of my head. My favorite line in the book was: "While some American toddlers are getting Mandarin tutors and pre-literacy training, French kids are-by design-toddling around by themselves."
Mod
As I walked along the beach today I was thinking of another one of french parenting's basic tenets:
"We want our children to be happy in their own skin."
Very simple and very profound.
And Diane, I appreciate the concern for freedom and creativity for our kids, and our desire to innovate and invent. But I'm not sure it's an either/ or question: behaving at mealtimes vs inventing Facebook.
I keep coming back to the philosophy of the "cadre" - having a frame that is secure - and a great deal of freedom within that frame.
And I'm starting to wonder if one of the reasons this book has struck such a profound chord is that it asks us to question our beliefs about freedom. As a child, I benefited from some benign neglect (the much younger caboose in a family of 4) which gave me the alone time and the freedom to become an artist. Is it really freedom to have a resume when you're in High School? Or is that fulfuling someone else's expectations?
Oh Laura, I love your last question! And as a new parent I find myself doing and saying things and my son is only 8 months old! An example would be my father bought my son a little soft football for him to roll around and my response was "no, no. He's going to be a baseball player." At only 8 months I've determined which sport he will play and he may not want to play sports at all!
Mod
Mod
Okay, my parents never slid down a slide with me. How about you?
I just finished Chapter 7 of the book and I crave discussion! I am a mother of two in my late 30s, an immigrant American, married to a French. This book hits home and actually clarifies many things I have known and felt about France and the French for a very long time, though I could never really explain!As someone who has tried to live in France three times (Bretagne, Lyon and Paris) and has hated in three times, I can say that she is very accurate in the way she explains all the details. Yet, my problem is that she is doing so by glorifying the French way through out the book, even though she starts the book by saying she does not want her child to be like the stuck up French! Well, my answer to that is that if you do not like the end result, how could you possibly glorify the method?
I feel like France and the French (whether its the cuisine, scenery, accent, you name it) is over glorified in world.
Though France and the French have many good things, I really don't see them as the most balanced and happiest or even most successful people in the world. As a matter of fact, having traveled a bit around the world and having known many people of different cultures, the French come across as one the most obnoxious, psychologically complex and unhappy people in the modern world. If anyone is up to it, I'd like to get into more a detailed discussion....
Maryann--I couldn't agree more. The fetishization of the French (or the Chinese or whatever the 'hot' culture of the moment is) bugs me to no end. I think that when you're a stranger in a strange land, like Druckerman was, you end up putting a great deal of emphasis on fitting in and behaving to the detriment of what's truly important. (See my comments, above.)
Yes, Druckerman's upper class, wealthy French friends do some things right. And I did enjoy parts of this book very much and think it's a worthwhile and very funny and well-written read. Also, I like the French. I spend a great deal of time in France and enjoy it a great deal. But I think they also get a lot of crucial stuff very, very wrong, and Ms. Druckerman glosses these aspects of the culture.
First, just about all of the good stuff of Druckerman's advice--brilliantly packaged and marketed as "French" wisdom--is common sense. Let your kid experience frustration, let him wait (le pause), don't follow him around the playground like a crazed idjit, have some rules (le cadre). The idea that this "wisdom" is uniquely French is absurd.
Meanwhile, Druckerman doesn't have much to say about a culture that disdains breastfeeding or that demands a mother's focus (and, more disturbingly, her doctor's) be on pleasing "le monsieur" (the husband) by losing weight tout de suite and getting mama back in "working" order (tummy tucks and perimeal re-education--that is, vagina tightening physical therapy) all paid for by the state.
Druckerman also downplays the importance of the most vital French parenting wisdom -- state-mandated paid maternity leaves, months of vacation time, free daycare, and free preschool. (Think about that. No, really--think about it. Wow. How anti-American is all that?!?) I wish the book had more to say on this. But Ms. Druckerman would rather talk about spinach soufflés for toddlers and sleeping issues (yawn!) and how awful Americans are. Again, and again, and again...
Diana,I agree. We had a long discussion with my husband - raised in France - tonight.
I find France to be a very sexist, discriminating and hierarchical society. I think the pressure to lose weight, the getting back to business of pleasing the man, the need to be feeling sexy and seductive for new moms, etc all speak to the sexist factor. AS a matter of fact, I think the over emphasis of the French culture on external beauty, especially for women speaks to that.As an American who studied at the Sorbonne, i was shocked by some of the comments my professor would make about women, not only in the US, but in many other places around the world those comments would have had some serious consequences, but in France they were the norm.
And, I find it sad that even though the French can have a lot more than the 3 months to tend to their babies - my cousin got almost 2 years with some partial benefits - most French moms chose to skip breastfeeding, delegating raising their child to the state and get back to pre-bebe life. The way Druckerman outlines parenting a la francaise, makes me wonder why these women have kids anyways? If you want your life to not to change a bit, as much as not to see a toy, what's the point - so I think there're got to be more. Also, I wonder how those French mothers really feel, and what they would have done if the pressure of the society (who up until not too long ago was treating it's kids as second hand citizens)had not been there, would those moms have gone out to the park in sweat pants and hopped on the see-saw with their kids? I say that, because as a mother - here in the US - I don't do that out of guilt, or pressure: I do so because I WANT to, because it's fun, because I enjoy it. Because that is the "plaisire" in my life.
Now, Druckerman also emphasizes that French women do not become "mom"s. They are the woman who happens to have a kid. I see something seriously wrong with that. I see becoming mom as growth, maturity, the next level . Are French women, staying obsessed with their "maquiage" and "kid free MOI time" reaching that level? I feel like there is some joy and pleasure in motherhood, in holding that baby of your, etc. Aren't the French women totally missing out on that if they refuse to become "mom"?
This book was recommended to me as an expecting parent. Reading the reviews it was clear that the book is quite divisive and many Americans have taken personal affront to it. So this is why I've resurrected this thread:Reading these statements from the vantage point of 2018 " So where the French fight immigration and change tooth and nail, we welcome it. "
"Do you want a child who behaves well in restaurants or do you want a child who's going to invent Facebook?"
is quite sad.
Also in light of the truths coming out of the Me Too movement not to mention in the highest offices of the land it is quite evident that Americans preaching about sexism in other cultures is a bit hypocritical.
Are we drowning in a sea of choices and contradictory "experts"?