Pam Druckerman boldly goes to Paris and joins the ranks of
George Orwell, Julia Child, and countless others writers who bring back a
funny, shocking, or depressing memoir. Unlike other “American in Paris”
memoirs, she’s not interested in romance, food, or rudeness; she explores how
the French raise their kids. With the inquisitive curiosity of Margaret Mead,
she asks one major question; why are French children so well behaved?
The story starts
out simply enough, she and her husband get assigned to work in France, and they
go with apprehension over language and adjustment. After having their first
child, Pam and her husband find something strange about French children; babies
sleep through the night, kids never interrupt their parents, and there are no
picky eaters. In the French preschools, chicken nuggets are never served.
Instead, the kids are served of salad with sun-dried tomatoes, followed by
fish, cooked vegetables, a cheese course, and fruit, prepared by a chef whose
credentials are ruthlessly screened. All over Paris, children sit quietly in
restaurants, never ask for seconds, never make noise, and never complain.
Whenever Druckerman sees noisy children, they’re usually American or British.
So what’s the secret to the kids being so well-behaved? Her quest begins!
The first thing she
discovers is a concept called “the pause.” It means that the parent must never
respond right away to a crying baby; instead of running to pick the baby up,
you wait five minutes for her to stop crying, then go to her. If the baby cries
at night, you ignore it, because after five minutes she’ll get tired and go
back to sleep. No night feeding either, because French babies eat at breakfast,
lunch, snack time, and dinner, just like the big kids. Without the night
feedings, there’s no need to get up to change the baby. They end up sleeping
through the night by three months.
On the American
side, we might see the French parenting as insensitive and unloving. But look
at the drawbacks to Dr. Spock’s methods, especially with regards to how it
effects marriage. Nighttime feedings leave mothers worn out and tired, and
having to tiptoe around the house, so as not to wake the baby, can be a
hardship to the other children. Extended breastfeeding can lead to a clingy
child, and make the child less inclined to try new foods. As for the parents
who let the child sleep in their bed, how do they have sex? American parents
treat their child as a plaything and a pet, but when the child becomes a clingy
four-year-old, they’re desperate for a break. Meanwhile, the French
four-year-old is going on a three-day school trip somewhere, and the parents
are perfectly confident that the children will be safe.
Until recently, few
of the “American in Paris” books were about the children, except for one; Paris Was Ours has a story about the
French style of parenting and the plot is similar. The author sees that French
mothers are “mean, mean, mean,” but the French kids behave perfectly. Take this
for example; a three year old spends a week in a hospital, and the minute he
gets out, the family goes to a seaside holiday, no cancelling the vacation. The
mother wants to go to the beach, and the child, who’s never seen the babysitter
before, won’t take food from her. So what does she do? She puts him to bed for
his nap, hungry and crying, and when he wakes, he eats ravenously. The mother’s
response? She says “that’ll teach him!”
I met a French school
chef in New York once, and asked him what he thought of our typical public
school lunch. The menu in question consisted of mashed potatoes, nachos with (processed)
cheddar cheese and bacon, chicken nuggets, fish sticks, pizza, spaghetti (served
preheated) and mystery meat. He looked at me warily and said “if I served this
to the students, I would lose my job, and people would laugh at me, and I don’t
know which is worse.”
Need I say more?
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