Bringing Up Bebe Druckerman, Pamela

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.

Praise

"As a new mom among all those uncannily confident Parisian women, [the author is] not too sure of herself, and who would be? This makes her a likable guide." - Susannah Meadows 02/08/2012

"But as much as American parents like to slosh around in their guilt while also splashing it on anyone who walks by pushing a stroller, they may not in fact feel bad enough to take advice from the French. We're talking, after all, about a people who not only eat pigeons but occasionally smoke cigarettes afterward, a people who also enjoy certain government subsidies and parental leave policies that make parenthood a less hectic proposition than over here." - Meghan Daum 02/09/2012

"[The author] joins the long list of Anglophone writers who make the case that in various areas of life, from food to fashion, the French do it better." - Elaine Sciolino 02/26/2012

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Bringing Up Bebe One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting (Hardcover)

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