Do the French have parenting figured out?

Published 5:34 pm Friday, February 24, 2012

So you’re visiting someone’s home with your child and hot chocolate is served. As the hostess’ kids sip the delicious concoction politely and silently, your own little dear takes a gulp and promptly spits it back into the mug.

Admit it, parents: Something similar has happened to you.

But for Pamela Druckerman, an American mother in Paris, it wasn’t just an isolated incident. That embarrassing moment with her daughter was one of many during her early years as a mother in France. There were years of fearing her children would act up, melt down or otherwise commit a serious faux pas at any moment.

Because, as Druckerman explains in her new book, “Bringing Up Bebe,” French children don’t spit into their mugs. They don’t have tantrums in the park, they don’t shun their vegetables, they don’t forget to say “bonjour” or “au revoir,” and they most certainly don’t throw food.

Are children in France born polite? Do they come out of the birth canal saying, “Bonjour, Maman,” and apologizing for the discomfort they’ve just caused?

Clearly not, but Druckerman, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, set out to determine just what French parents are doing right. “Bringing Up Bebe,” written in a winningly chatty style, debuted at No. 8 on The New York Times best-seller list earlier this month.

The book has also drawn attention through comparison to Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” last year’s provocative account of Eastern-style parenting. “First Tiger Mom. Now, I dunno, Fromage Mom?” Jen Singer wrote recently on her mommy blog, Mommasaid.net. “Nowadays, it appears that everyone is better at parenting than Americans are.”

She added: “Here’s the dirty little secret about their ‘superior’ parenting philosophies: They’re not about the kids. The so-called French parenting method seems to make life easier for parents who want to socialize.”

Druckerman’s book favors the stricter French parenting style, and judging by comments on the Internet, not all American moms disagree.

“It sounds like French mothers are experiencing more joy and feeling less frazzled by parenthood,” said Kat Gordon, a mother of two sons in Palo Alto, Calif. “That’s something all mothers should want — if we can get over our defensiveness.”

French mothers, Druckerman writes, love their children as much as anyone, but don’t see them as their entire life project, to the exclusion of professional satisfaction, adult leisure time and quality time with a spouse.

Druckerman writes about how many French babies, at an extremely young age, sleep through the night, thanks to La Pause: Parents wait a bit when the baby fusses. Maybe the baby can sort it out alone.

This helps with more than sleep, Druckerman says: It’s also a crucial building block to developing patience.

But that doesn’t explain why French children, according to Druckerman, so rarely have tantrums, at least in public. She says that they’re given a strict cadre to guide them. A nonnegotiable: saying “bonjour” and “au revoir.” It’s not mere politeness, but a way of acknowledging the world doesn’t revolve around them.