Thanks for your comments SiaSL! The slack thinking evident in that article drove me crazy. Non-representative samples? Check. Anecdotal evidence? Check. Ignoring other causal factors? Check. Confirmation bias? Check.
What's especially crazy-making is that it's such a mish-mash, and there are elements of truth mixed in. Like you say, she's right about the food thing. She's also right that there's a tendency for (some) American parents to doubt their own authority.
I'm glad the author learned that calm-authority thing from her friend at the playground. (I like to say that being a university professor has prepared me for parenthood. Managing undergraduates with calm authority is the same skill-set as parenting a toddler!) But seriously, this is a point that's been known for years -- "authoritative" parenting works better than either "authoritarian" or "permissive."
But American parents vary widely on where they fall on that spectrum. They're not all push-overs. And on the flip side, French parents may be more uniform in their parenting style, but they are (as SiaSL points out) way more towards the "authoritarian" end than the author portrays it.
Again, it's a mixed situation, one that deserves a nuanced analysis of the complexities. This book isn't that.
