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Bonjour Bébé: How French Parenting Practices Benefit Working Moms (and their Kids)

Work Wednesday

Globalization is the trend of this millennium so it's not surprising that it's taken over the parenting book industry.

Last winter, the Wall Street Journal sparked an online controversy by publishing an excerpt from Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which extolled a hardcore Chinese-style academically-focused approach to parenting, under the headline, "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior."

Now, the Journal's turned West for inspiration, publishing an excerpt from Pamela Druckerman's Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting, under the headline, "Why French Parents are Superior."  Druckerman's book promotes French parenting practices, which, as The New York Times puts it, teach you how to "raise the perfect children produced by [Chua] without the fuss of having to chain them to the piano or throw them out of the house."

Bébé just arrived in America yesterday, so I haven't read it all yet. (There's also a U.K. version, French Children Don’t Throw Food: Parenting Secrets From Paris, published last month.) But based on first impressions, I think I'm going to love Druckerman's memoir as much as I loathed Chua's message.

It's not that I'm enthralled by Druckerman's writing, although so far the book seems funny, balanced, and self-aware. And it's not that her advice is a complete revelation. (You can find a good summary of the top ten tips we're supposed to learn from Bébé here.) Much of it - relax, let your baby cry a little, teach your kids how to wait, act with authority - seems like cross-cultural common sense. (I do have to admit, though, that I can't imagine how I'd ever enforce the one snack (at 4:00 p.m.?) rule with my constantly-grazing five-year-old son.)

The real reason I'm looking forward to reading Bébé is that Druckerman's main point - that the French are better parents because they are less obsessive about parenting - seems positive for working moms.  As Druckerman explains, 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." It's this lack of guilt (or at least lessened guilt) that seems to set French parents apart from American parents. And that, Druckerman contends, is good for moms, kids, and family life as a whole.

Exhale

Therapy Tuesday
Photo by: dcjohn

A few weeks ago, I was invited to my first professional event where I received swag. It wasn't as glamorous as a movie premiere, but I'm still psyched about the swag. I went to see Dr. Norman Rosenthal talk about his new book: Transcendence. Dr. Rosenthal is an expert in Seasonal Affective Disorder (he coined the diagnosis) and has recently turned his eye towards meditation.

He writes about a type of meditation: Transcendental Mediation. This is one of many ways to meditate, but this technique has been repeatedly empirically validated by the scientific method. Enter Dr. Rosenthal, who conducted a literature review of the science behind this technique. Consistently, he found if practiced faithfully (twice a day for 15-20 minutes each time), TM changed people's physiology (both mind and body).

My first exposure to TM was nearly 10 years ago when my mother learned it. I admit, there were many family jokes when she went off to meditate. I inherit my anxiety honestly, and it has been incredible to see the change in her. She is able to curb her anxiety, feel renewed at the end of the day, and tackle the stress of her work (an event planner). So I figured, why not try it myself? (This is where the swag comes in).

As part of the dinner I attended where I heard Dr. Rosenthal speak, every participant was given a free course in TM as well as Dr. Rosenthal's book. So with nothing to lose, I decided to go for it now. I've almost completed the 4-day introductory course, and I can say that that exponentially, there is something to this.

Here's a perfect example: I had gotten very little sleep Friday night, yet had a full day on Saturday (thank you darling daughter...). We had dinner plans in the evening with friends (an amazing feat!) but by 5pm, I was exhausted. I retreated to my room, sat down, practiced TM for 20 minutes. At the end, I felt energized and ready to go out. Without a nap, rest, or anything longer than a 20 minute meditation. If this can help me survive my infant, I'm all on board!

My thought to share is during this busy season, don't forget to give a gift to yourself. While it doesn't have to be TM per se, some tool for restoration can go very far.

Finding Your Village

Therapy Tuesday
Photo by: dcjohn

The year of my high school graduation, a book came out amongst a lot of fanfare: It Takes a Village written by then First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. Her sentiment is that children grow best when there are many to tend to them. Many sociologists and psychologists also hold this world view, as children are not raised in isolation or even under solely the close watch of immediate family. 

The older family model, where one parent worked (normally the father) and the other stayed at home to raise the children (typically the mother) has given way to both parents working outside of the home. The traditional style family still had a village: at least as long as the children went to school. There entered the principal, teachers, and other kids that began to impact their children's world views.

Who is in your village? Certainly, having one is helpful to raise children. I would argue that the premise extends to each of us. We all deserve a team of people standing behind us, ready to assist when life gets hard or we have fallen. Even if you don't live near relatives, you can still have a village. Start with your physician. Don't have one? Time to find one. And make that physical appointment. Enlist the help of some peers or friends. They can be other moms, childhood friends, or people that you meet going about your life. Connect with something: a religious organization is a great place to start. Not religious? Find a walking group, book club, or topic that you are interested in. Like minded people will follow.

Once your village is in place, check to see who might be there for your children. A godparent? Gymnastics instructor? Who are the role models that you are selecting for them? Who do they select for themselves? Villages are amazing things as they can give you the support you need even when you don't think you have it in you to continue. I know that my village was made of expected and unexpected people. When things were awful, I was surprised by who stood by me and who rose to the occasion.

 

Saying Goodnight

Truth Thursday

My ten-year-old has a new bedtime routine. Each night when I tuck him in he asks me series of questions about my favorites things. Mom, what’s your favorite movie? What’s your favorite country? What’s your favorite sport? What’s your favorite color? What’s the best book you read when you were in school?

These are fun questions to answer – although they get a bit repetitive. Tonight he differentiated the movie question to ask my favorite recent movie – as opposed to the top five of all time (“yes, Mom, I know, Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, and I can’t remember the rest.”) (For the record, A Room With a View, Annie Hall and Singin’ in the Rain.) 

I have been struck by these questions, thinking that perhaps he is storing the information away to be resurrected at some later date when he is thinking about me. But I think it’s more than that. I think that he is beginning the drawn out process of separating from me, and that these questions are his way of drawing me close, even when he’s getting ready to pull away. 

My daughter did the same thing. About six months before she turned 11, she changed our goodnight routine. Up until that time, we had snuggled and nuzzled and kissed goodnight pretty much the same way from the time she was a little girl (except for the year she where she would almost robotically recite a little ditty for us, the nonsense words to which I’ve written down somewhere for posterity, but that was an aberration.) 

Then, all of a sudden, whenever I would lean down to kiss her goodnight, she would grab me with both arms, pull me down into the bed and giggle “Mommy, come sleep with me!”  She’d try to get me to lie down with her and spend the night, not something we’d ever done in our house. 

Mourning Borders

Image by rentvine.com/Dave Dugdale via Flickr

Truth Tuesday

When the news that Borders is closing all of its stores nationwide hit the wires, I was stunned. I knew that Borders had been having problems and had filed for bankruptcy, but I foolishly assumed it would all work out in the end. After all, Borders is one of my favorite places to go and get lost in my thoughts, how could that sanctuary just disappear?

As egocentric as that sounds, I am truly mourning the loss of Borders. The city in which I live really has no other bookstores of which to speak. When Borders opened here it was poorly received because many (if not most) of the small, independent bookstores around couldn’t survive the competition. In an ironic twist, there are almost no independent bookstores left to help me through the grieving process.

My Facebook page and my Google+ stream have been full of discussion about Borders closing and the reaction has been mixed. Many people, like me, are devastated to lose a brick and mortar bookstore. But just as many are touting this as the inevitable future in which we turn toward eBook readers and virtual browsing.

What I’m mourning isn’t just the loss of a brick and mortar bookstore, it’s the loss of a part of my childhood that, until now, I’ve been lucky enough to share with my children.

Ever since I was a child, the library and the bookstore have been my safe havens. I love the feel of a new book, the anticipation of reading something new and giving myself just a peek at the first page. I love the heft of the book in my hands and the smell of the paper. I love the physical search through book after book and shelf after shelf to find a story that looks interesting.