Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Why French Parents Are Superior

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204740904577196931457473816.html
Why French Parents Are Superior
By PAMELA DRUCKERMAN
Wall Street Journal
FEBRUARY 4, 2012

...

[Q]uietly and en masse, French parents were achieving outcomes that created a whole different atmosphere for family life. When American families visited our home, the parents usually spent much of the visit refereeing their kids' spats, helping their toddlers do laps around the kitchen island, or getting down on the floor to build Lego villages. When French friends visited, by contrast, the grownups had coffee and the children played happily by themselves.

By the end of our ruined beach holiday, I decided to figure out what French parents were doing differently. Why didn't French children throw food? And why weren't their parents shouting? Could I change my wiring and get the same results with my own offspring?

Driven partly by maternal desperation, I have spent the last several years investigating French parenting. And now, with Bean 6 years old and twins who are 3, I can tell you this: The French aren't perfect, but they have some parenting secrets that really do work.

I first realized I was on to something when I discovered a 2009 study, led by economists at Princeton, comparing the child-care experiences of similarly situated mothers in Columbus, Ohio, and Rennes, France. The researchers found that American moms considered it more than twice as unpleasant to deal with their kids. In a different study by the same economists, working mothers in Texas said that even housework was more pleasant than child care.

Rest assured, I certainly don't suffer from a pro-France bias. Au contraire, I'm not even sure that I like living here. I certainly don't want my kids growing up to become sniffy Parisians.

But for all its problems, France is the perfect foil for the current problems in American parenting. Middle-class French parents (I didn't follow the very rich or poor) have values that look familiar to me. They are zealous about talking to their kids, showing them nature and reading them lots of books. They take them to tennis lessons, painting classes and interactive science museums.

Yet the French have managed to be involved with their families without becoming obsessive. They assume that even good parents aren't at the constant service of their children, and that there is no need to feel guilty about this. "For me, the evenings are for the parents," one Parisian mother told me. "My daughter can be with us if she wants, but it's adult time." French parents want their kids to be stimulated, but not all the time. While some American toddlers are getting Mandarin tutors and preliteracy training, French kids are—by design—toddling around by themselves.



Most parents, myself included, don't have the steely determination to be an Amy Chua (of Tiger Mother fame). The French model seems more achievable, and it may resemble how Americans raised their children a few decades ago. The author has a forthcoming book, "Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting".

I really hate articles like these. It's not really a shock to find that parents with poorly behaved children do not like parenting as much that those with well behaved kids do. My sibling tells me that DS is less demanding and less high maintenance. Yes, but we also say no, don't waver, set boundaries, teach values all while still letting DS know that he is treasured. If you don't do the hard stuff you don't get the benefits. the reference to Amy Chua was telling, you can debate her methods endlessly (and I think we did here ) but you can't debate that she put the time in and was consistent in trying to get what she wanted from her kids.

But the scientist in me is driven crazy but the faux comparative analysis. You cannot say that the middle class or upper middle class scenarios are equal when the french have universal health care, more vacation time, shorter work weeks and numerous other mechanisms which make life just easier all around. French families are not nearly as stressed about the things which drive american families to be stressed even before they get to actual parenting. The irony of this being in the WSJ!

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I didn't like it either. Middle-class American kids can't deal with stress? Is that based on something real, or just the bare existence of the "helicopter parent" meme?

My kids don't throw food at restaurants, either. Guess there's a little fronsh in me.

All those government benefits come at the cost of high taxes, which can also stress families trying to make ends meet. Social spending in the U.S. is higher now than it was a half-century ago, and I don't think that has reduced stress. I think the article is correct to say that French parents have different expectations for their children, which makes their parenting less unpleasant.

Yoga teaches us that Turtles are the true superior parents, they feed their children just by thinking about it and doing nothing. She should have known better than to eat in a French restaraunt, didn't she watch Disney's Ratatoulie? It just seems easier to discuss parenting by setting universal parenting issues in a land far, far away. In the book I'm reading Playful Parenting kids use play to explore their own issues, peek-aboo shows us that people come, go, and return. I guess that's the allure of assigning universal parenting issues to exotic far away cultures to discuss them. As a storytelling technique, it's fine.

How the tax burden is distributed, and what kinds of supports and benefits the social spending provides both matter a great deal in shaping whether higher spending and taxes relieve or exacerbate stress on lower- and middle-income families. In the case of the US vs France, it seems clear that France's higher social spending significantly reduces the number of families who are "trying to make ends meet". Source

Thank you--ITA. My husband is German and I see the same scenario in Germany with his family there. 2nd to last sentence is right on the money.

I definitely think that the social benefits do make a difference, even with a higher tax burden. "Of course, the French have all kinds of public services that help to make having kids more appealing and less stressful. Parents don't have to pay for preschool, worry about health insurance or save for college. Many get monthly cash allotments—wired directly into their bank accounts—just for having kids" (from the article).

Switching to a different aspect of the article, I’m pretty sure DS2 would fail Walter Mischel’s marshmellow test, although he would never give up trying to convince you to give him the second marshmellow anyway.

I’m curious… how many people here would say that they have or had a well-behaved toddler? (as described by the article - patient, didn’t interrupt, obeyed “no” the first time, played happily in the sandbox/park, and could sit through a restaurant dinner in their high chair?)

I can't tell you what a relief it's been to find this site. The first three years of dd16's life is now a blur. Dh has a very varied schedule and is often gone for days at a time. So I was on my own to run a business, tend acreage, animals and this beautiful child who wore us out.

Dd was very intense, didn't sleep through the night until she was 18 months old (neither did ds), would rarely nap but needed, demanded a ton of stimulation.

Other mother's made it seem s-o easy and here I was barely hanging on and thought it couldn't get much worse. And then we had ds12.

Do any of you remember how Costco used to stack up vitamin bottles under their shelves? Ds sent about 300 bottles rolling through the aisles - just to see how many he get rolling and in what direction. He was 2.

It's so, so much easier now that they are teenagers.

I *had* a well-behaved toddler... and now that she's almost 8 she's driving us nuts at home with her behavior... so perhaps they should re-survey those French families a few years down the road?

My ds was semi-well behaved, but he's a totally passive personality who's all inward. He also had a rough behavior patch for awhile, but it was around 5-6 years old.

My other dd - totally non-well-behaved screaming maniac toddler.

All three of them, I got down and played Legos with and chased around kitchen counters and what-not. Still do.

Personally I'd like to know how the French parents have time to do all that taking their kids to museums etc and still have time to have "adult" time at night while the kids are still awake? Is their school day shorter than our school days? By the time we're home and done with everything, even on nights when we don't pursue our crazy American after-school activities, there really isn't time for "adult time"... except when it's so late we're falling asleep!

polarbear