First the Chinese and now those damn French!

Americans become very defensive -- no, more like hostile -- when they feel their child-rearing practices are being scrutinized: ie, American kids are fat, lazy, and talk back.  Last year when Amy Chua, author of Tiger Mom, went on a book tour, she had to travel with security guards due to the angry emails and threats of personal violence which she received upon publication of her book on parenting the Chinese way.  Chua, a Yale law professor, is in town this weekend speaking to a packed house at the University of Minnesota.  I guess the anger and hostility has died down into a healthy discussion mode.

Chua thinks many Americans coddle their children, not preparing them for the demands of the real world.  Chua's book details how she raised two now highly accomplished daughters, using the techniques and philosophy her Chinese immigrant parents used on her.  Chua has admitted that she was often mean and unfair to her daughters, making them practice their musical instruments for hours on end every day and rejecting their hand-made gifts because they were poorly constructed.

Tiger Mom did not allow her daughters to watch television or attend sleepovers with their school chums, and she demanded that they make straight As.  (Sounds like child abuse to me.)  In truth, the tale she tells about putting one of her daughters out barefoot on the porch in December for an extended period of time when she would not practice piano as she had been instructed upset me greatly.  I had an abusive father and this story came a little too close to home.  Chua has admitted she would do many things differently now and says there are many positives in how Americans raise their kids.  Her daughter, the one sent to the porch, now attends Harvard and writes a blog, probably to show that although Mommy was indeed strict strict, her daughter has not, as yet anyway, landed on the shrink's couch.

Last week, a new book about raising children was released, Bringing Up Bebe, by Pamela Druckerman.  The author is an American Expat who has lived in Paris the past six years.  She is married to a Brit, whom she calls a curmudgeon (as I and others have always called Harry), and has a five-year-old daughter and twin sons aged three.  Most  reviews of the book have been harsh and a bit glib, in my view.  In 2004, the book Why French Women Don't Get Fat was published, and we Americans learned that disciplined moderation, not starvation, Weight Watchers, or Slim Fast shakes is the French secret to keeping a trim figure. Now we learn that same disciplined moderation, not exactly a trait common to our culture, is also practiced by the French with regard to their child-raising.

When Druckerman began living in Paris, she found French children very different from their American counterparts.  I had the same reaction when Harry and I spent a week in Paris a few years ago.  I remember thinking I never saw a child throwing a tantrum in public, but even more importantly the French seemed to delight so in their children.  I thought there must be something in the water!  The author says that in six years she too has never observed a French child throwing a tantrum in public, and when she visits French homes, children are amazingly well behaved.  The author goes to great length to examine the historical and cultural elements that may account for the French style of parenting.

In England, the same year we took our Paris trip, I frequently found the Brits to be verbally abusive to their children in public, painfully so.  I witnessed parents yelling at their kids and criticizing them in the supermarkets, in restaurants, on the streets, and kids yelling back abusively at their parents.  A toddler tantrum in public was as common in the north of England as it is here in the States.

So, just what do the French do to raise these calm, seemingly happy, well behaved, non-tantrum children?  Well, lots of things, subtle things, many of which Americans would never do because patience, consistency and moderation are required. Our culture, with all its diversity and complexity, seems to be evolving ever faster towards the ever more intense need to instant gratification.  We do, after all, text and drive.  The French government also supports young families in ways that our government never has and never will.  Young families get help in France that would make Tea Party members even more hysterical than they already are.  The French birth rate is up while many other European countries are in a state of steep population decline. This is worrisome for those living in these low birthrate countries who plan on retirement some day. 

The French gently teach their children to wait, and the waiting starts in the hospital nursery.  Learning to wait, they believe, teaches children that the world is not always going to give you what you want instantly so it is best to learn the lesson early.  Being able to wait shows respect for other people who have rights too, even parents.  A newborn in Paris is gently taught to sleep through the night by the age of three months.  It is expected of them and they do it.  After all, mommy and daddy need their sleep too.  Toddlers eat scheduled meals, three healthy ones and a once, I repeat, once a day snack. Part of the culture in Paris is to teach very small  children to bake a simple cake which they are made to wait to eat at snack time in the late afternoon (recipe below).  Toddlers and young children can sit in a restaurant with their parents and not disturb everyone around them. When the family leaves the restaurant, the waiter or waitress does not have to bring out a broom to sweep up all the food on the floor.  French children play frequently in parks without their parents monitoring their every move.  The French do not believe that dragging your children to a bunch of lessons after school or on the weekends is necessarily good or desirable.
 
Years ago my sister, who lived in Colombia at the time, said that all children were potty trained there soon after they could walk.  I did not believe her.  She came to visit me one summer when Alexis was a year or so and gave me the book, Potty Training in a Day.  I remember thinking, well, why not try it, diapers are a pain?  I read it, followed the protocol, and we trained Alexis in one day.  I was thrilled as a working mom and so was her babysitter, Sonia, who had several other toddlers in diapers at the time.

I vividly remember the competition between the Suzuki parents when Alexis took violin lessons as a child.  "What song is she playing now?"  "Oh, my Susie played that months ago." French parents find this sort of competition distasteful.  So did I.  In an adult English class I taught a few years ago I remember a Japanese woman explaining how Japanese mothers teach their children to stop eating well before they are full.  There is little obesity in Japan or in France.

Parents with self control usually have children with self control: as a teacher I know this to be true.  Just watch an episode of The Nanny if you don't believe me and you will never again question how children can become so rude and demanding.  Yes, it is quite simple: if children are rude and demanding, it is because the parents let them be rude and demanding.  The French believe that parents must set firm limits.  Too many choices only confuse a child.  Within the strict boundaries, however, children enjoy much freedom in France. They allow for much unstructured playtime, without adults hovering overhead. 

It should also be noted that French mothers rarely breast feed their infants.  Fear of droopy boobs, perhaps?  French mothers scoff at natural childbirth.  Why would you if you can have an epidural?  I also doubt there are many home-schooled French students; few French mommies would be willing simply to stop their lives for a few years to give their child the luxury of a one-on-one tutor.  French women are so selfish! 

There are a million books and websites out there telling parents how best to parent today. This book is just one more to add to the pile: one which, I would argue, should be taken off the pile and read carefully here in America.  There is some wisdom to be had!!

Editor's note: I wonder whether impatience will become an adaptive behavior in the new world from which I increasingly opt out in order to practice being a curmudgeon.

Writer's note:  Harry needs no practice in being a curmudgeon.

GATEAU AU YAOURT

2 six ounce containers plain whole mile yogurt  (use the empty containers to measure the other ingredients)

2 eggs

2 containers sugar (or just one, depending on how sweet you like it) 

1teaspoon vanilla 

Just under 1 container vegetable oil

4 containers flour

1 and one half teaspoons baking baking powder

Creme fraiche  (optional)  

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Grease a round cake pan or loaf pan

Gently combine yogurt, eggs, sugar, vanilla and oil.  In a separate bowl, mix the flour and baking powder.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients until ingredients are just combined. Do not overmix.  You ca add a container of frozen berries or chocolate chips or any flavoring you like.  

Bake for 35 minutes, or more if the cake does not pass the stick in the knife test.  It will be crispy on the outside and springy on the inside.  Let is cool.  Serve with a dollop of creme fraiche.  (found at Lunds or Byerlys in Mpls.)