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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.

Finding the Dragon Within on Chinese New Year

Truth Tuesday

Growing up a mixed-race child in lily-white upstate New York, I wanted nothing more than to blend in with my peers. If people asked, "what are you?" I would claim, "I'm just like you!" This despite the Chinese mother by my side and my own clearly Asian hair, eyes and skin. I celebrated Chinese New Year with my family, of course -- who could resist sweet pastries, brown sugar cake and red packets stuffed with money -- but never shared any of these traditions with friends at school.

At the same time, I followed the model minority path of good grades, musical prowess, and adherence to most school and parental rules. I genuinely thought of myself as a meek and obedient girl who would never make waves in life. An introvert.

How things change. 

Since becoming a mother eight years ago and an independent journalist three years ago -- courtesy of a somewhat anticipated layoff -- I have found my voice with a vengeance. And the process began earlier, of course, with every career success or personal triumph that built my self-esteem little by little. But somehow, having children for whom to set an example and a family to feed give me the motivation to speak my mind and the confidence to know that my thoughts are worth sharing.

In particular, I've started speaking up about work-life balance and workplace flexibility. For the last decade, I've covered workplace issues as a journalist. My intense focus on this subject has hammered home my belief that work gives life meaning -- but it can also drain life of joy without healthy boundaries. 

On the Job, It’s the Little Things That Count

Work Wednesday

A few years ago, my husband had a job that he hated. It seemed like every day he would come home in a depressed funk. I couldn’t understand it. The pay was good, the commute was short, the work was interesting, and his coworkers were nice. So what on earth was his problem? 

It started out as a few minor annoyances. Arriving at the main parking garage one minute after 8 a.m. meant having to park in a garage a half mile away.  Oh well. A little walk is good for the health, right? Then there was the absence of a water cooler. Employees had to supply their own bottled or filtered water if they wanted it. But there wasn’t enough space to store large bottles of water, and managing the “water club” dues was a bothersome task. 

Pretty soon, the minor annoyances coalesced into a tidal wave of bitterness and low morale.

In Praise of Failure

Work Wednesday

Apart from swearing off working mom studies, one of my chief New Year's resolutions - at least when it comes to this blog - was to write my posts in advance, or at least not wait until midnight on Tuesday nights. Unfortunately, that resolution's gone to the same place that my "healthful eating" resolution went when my wonderful colleagues surprised me with some fancy birthday cupcakes.

So, here I am on Tuesday night trying to find something new to say about working moms and the whole work-life balance thing. And failing. Thoroughly.

Wait, that's it! Maybe this post should be about failing and why, sometimes, it's O.K. for working moms to fail. Like right now.

Here's the situation.

I could spend the rest of tonight and the early hours of tomorrow searching the Internet for inspiration. Writing and editing draft after draft until I managed to produce a passable post. I wouldn't get much sleep and would be exhausted tomorrow. There's a strong chance that I'd snap at the kids, snarl at my husband, and feel funky all day at work. (That's just a theoretical prediction, of course. Nothing in this post is intended to resemble real life.)

Or, I could give myself a break, recognize that the world won't end if I don't manage to come up with a brilliant blog, hit the publish key, and go directly to bed. Sounds great, right? Good night!

Seriously, there might be something to the the idea of allowing yourself to fail. I'm not advocating, of course, that you simply blow off work deadlines or forget to pick up your kids. (Or that you eat cupcakes with abandon.) Failure, often, is not an option. But sometimes it might make sense to fail to live up expectations about what it means to be a good mother or a committed employee or even a well-functioning person. Especially when those expectations aren't rational or reasonable.

Resolved: Swearing Off Working Mom Studies for 2012

Work Wednesday

It's the time of the year for the media's annual news roundups, and 2011 will certainly be remembered for its headlines about fascinating, emotional, and world-changing events - from the Arab Spring to the Japanese earthquake/tsunami to the deaths of Steve Jobs and Osama bin Laden and the marriage of Kate and William. (Check out this 60-second video from Reuters or this more in-depth year-end special report from The Altantic for a flavor of this yearly rite.)

Over here at Work Wednesday, though, 2011 will be remembered as the year of the working mom study headlines - and the year I finally succumbed to working mom study fatigue.

Just this month, there have been hundreds of headlines about a study, published in the American Psychological Association's Journal of Family Psychology, which found that working moms tend to be healthier and happier than moms who stay at home (at least during their children's infancy and pre-school years).  And hundreds more about another study, published  in the American Sociological Society Review, which concluded that working moms are more stressed out by multitasking than working dads. If you've somehow missed all this, just google "working mom study December 2011" and you'll see what I mean. (Here's a sample.) There are more articles, blogs, opinion pieces, video clips, and radio stories reporting on, analyzing, praising, and criticizing these studies than I can count!

These December studies are just the latest in this year's seemingly endless spate of studies about working moms. To be sure, there's been a raft of reassuring and positive studies about the benefits of working motherhood for women and children's emotional health and development. (I liked them.) But there's also been a big bunch of negative and alarmist ones trumpeting higher risks of obesity, illness, and a host of other dangers for working moms' kids. (I didn't like them so much.) I've blogged about the implications and limitations of some of these studies here, here, and here.  But, although I'll admit to a slight addiction to abstracts, I think I've finally reached working mom study overload. I'm swearing off working mom studies for 2012!