Bringing Up Bébé

At the risk of incurring the ire of friends who have children, and therefore might be more qualified to comment on a parenting book than I, I’ve decided to share my thoughts on Pamela Druckerman’s Bringing Up Bébé. Now the first thing to say about this book, that is the style and the writing – is that I really liked it. Not only is it written in the voice that I prefer and in which I often tend to write (sorry, but try as they might my dissertation committee could not beat the matter-of-fact, conversational quality out of my writing), but it actually made me laugh out loud more than once. This is rare, but then lately I seem to have read a lot about war, and a bit about mental illness, and often both at once. I suppose neither of those topics is particularly funny. So, this book gets points for making me laugh. It also earns high points for providing an excellent, inside look at life in France, from the schools to the hospitals to the bureaucracies. (It also loses points for this, as at various points I was tempted to ditch a life in America for one in Paris, until I remembered that France isn’t entirely the rose garden Druckerman portrays. Child care, healthcare, and college tuition may be heavily subsidized by the state, but the VAT is nearly 20% and most French people I know certainly have as many cost-/quality-of-life concerns as Americans.) I digress.  

As far as the comparisons between French parenting and American parenting, I quickly grew weary. So much of what the author identifies as 'French parenting' I would label as 'common sense.' For example, she bemoans the highly limited diets of American toddlers and children while delighting in the way French children eat a tremendous variety of foods. Now, this may not be a fair comparison for a number of reasons, not least because France is the land of brie and baguettes while America is home to Wonder Bread and Cheez Whiz. But, her case is not helped by showcasing an American toddler who refuses to eat anything except foil wrapped Santa Clauses; his parents buy out the stores at Christmas lest they run out and he go hungry after the holidays. They believe they are being good parents. I believe they should be investigated for child abuse. She attributes the wider palate of  French children to parents refusing to indulge in this behavior and requiring their children to sample all foods at least once and generally eat the same meals as the parents. Brilliant! Who ever would have thought? Other than my own parents, I suppose, and most every other family I knew growing up.

Likewise, we learn that all American children are unruly little wildebeests because their parents have yet to harness the power of the word ‘no.’ She even devotes several pages to how she had to learn to say this word with conviction so that her young son would listen and obey. It never occurred to me that parents would not use this word (and use it often). Clearly the wildebeests belong to the people who cannot say no. I mean, she tells horror story of restaurant meals with her own one-year-old, who cannot be made to sit at the table while the parents eat. Having recently enjoyed a long and lovely brunch with good friends and their adorably well-behaved, one-year-old daughter, I can definitely say that not all American toddlers behave this way.

Toward the end of the book she discusses the differences in baby-proofing philosophies: she wishes to replace the bathroom floors with something entirely rubber in order to reduce (eliminate?) the risk of a child slipping and falling. The French people who learn of this idea think it is madness. So do I. We simply used a bath mat and my mother would say, ‘be careful not to fall.’ I suppose if I had, I would have been more careful the next time.  I’d continue, but I’m sure you get the idea.