3 Mischel found that kids can easily learn to distract themselves. In a subsequent marshmallow test, experimenters told the children that instead of thinking about the marshmallow, they should think about something happy like ‘swinging on a swing with Mummy pushing’ or pretend it was just a picture of a marshmallow. With this instruction, overall waiting times increased dramatically. Waiting times improved even though kids knew that they were trying to trick themselves. The moment the experimenter walked back into the room, children who had been busy self-distracting for fifteen minutes gobbled up the marshmallow.
4 Jennifer Steinhauer, ‘Snack Time Never Ends’, New York Times, 20 January 2010.
5 Marie-Anne Suizzo, ‘French and American mothers’ childrearing beliefs: stimulating, responding, and long-term goals’, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 35:5 (September 2004), 606–26.
6 NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development.
7 A 2006 study of white, middle-class Canadian couples found that when the kids were around – which was very often – it was impossible for parents to have quality time together. One participant said that while speaking to his wife, ‘we would be interrupted on a minute-to-minute basis’. The authors conclude that, ‘For any experience of being a couple together, they simply had to get away from the children.’ Vera Dyck and Kerry Daly, ‘Rising to the challenge: fathers’ role in the negotiation of couple time’, Leisure Studies, 25:2 (2006), 201–17.
8 The psychologist is Christine Brunet, quoted in Journal des Femmes, 11 February 2005.
9 Anne-Catherine Pernot-Masson, quoted in Votre Enfant.
5: Tiny Little Humans
1Judith Woods, ‘I’m a pushy parent, and proud’, Daily Telegraph, 6 January 2010.
2 Elisabeth Badinter, L’amour en plus: histoire de l’amour maternel, Paris: Flammarion, 1980.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Marie-Anne Suizzo, ‘French and American mothers’ childrearing beliefs: stimulating, responding, and long-term goals’, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 35:5 (September 2004), 606–26.
6 ‘Dolto: une vie pour l’enfance’, Télérama hors série, 2008.
7 Recollection of the psychoanalyst Alain Vanier, reported in Dolto: une vie pour l’enfance, Télérama hors série, 2008.
8 The psychologist is Muriel Djéribi-Valentin, interviewed by Jacqueline Sellem in ‘Françoise Dolto: quand l’enfant est un sujet à part entière’, translated by Kieran O’Meara for l’Humanité in English.
9 Marie-Anne Suizzo found that 86 per cent of Parisian mothers she interviewed ‘specifically stated that they talk to their infants to communicate with them’. Marie-Anne Suizzo, ‘Mother–child relationships in France: balancing autonomy and affiliation in everyday interactions’, Ethos, 32:3 (2004), 292–323.
10 Paul Bloom, ‘Moral Life of Babies’, New York Times Magazine, 3 May 2010.
11 Alison Gopnik writes that these new studies ‘demonstrate that babies and very young children know, observe, explore, imagine and learn more than we would ever have thought possible’. Gopnik is a psychologist at the University of California at Berkeley and author of The Philosophical Baby.
6: Daycare?
1 A 2009 report by the Paris mayor’s office said that caregivers shouldn’t speak badly about a child’s parents, origins, or appearance, even if the child is an infant, and even if the remark is made to someone else. ‘The implicit message in this type of reflection is always perceived intuitively by the children. The younger they are, the more they understand what is contained behind the words,’ the report says.
2 OECD, ‘Starting Strong II: Early Childhood Education and Care’, 2006.
3 NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development.
4 Jay Belsky, ‘Effects of child care on child development: give parents real choice’, March 2009.
7: Bébé au Lait
1 OECD, ‘France Country Highlights, Doing Better for Children’, 2009.
2 WHO Global Data Bank on Infant and Young Child Feeding, 2007–2008. In America, 74 per cent of mothers do at least some breastfeeding, and a third are still nursing exclusively at four months.
3 ‘Why do babies turn so many brilliant women into slummy mummies?’ by Helen Kirwan-Taylor, Mail Online, 2 September 2009.
4 When French and American mothers ranked the importance of ‘always put[ting] the baby’s needs before one’s own’, American mothers gave it 2.89 out of 5; French mothers gave it 1.26 out of 5. The 2004 study, by Marie-Anne Suizzo, is called ‘French and American mothers’ childrearing beliefs: stimulating, responding, and long-term goals’. It was published in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.
5 ‘Géraldine Pailhas, des visages, des figures’, by Violaine Belle-Croix, Milk Magazine, 13 September 2010.
6 ‘French women know that an inner life is a sexy thing. It needs to be nurtured, developed, pampered …’ Debra Ollivier writes in What French Women Know.
8: The Perfect Mother Doesn’t Exist
1 Given the baby boom and the shortage of places in crèches, the French state pays some mothers about 500 euros a month to look after their own children until the youngest is three. Mothers are also entitled to work part-time for the first three years.
2 Judith Warner writes in Perfect Madness that after her first child was born, ‘I talked and sang and made up stories and did funny voices and narrated car rides and read at mealtimes until, when my daughter turned four and a half, I realized that I had turned into a human television set, so filled with twenty-four-hour children’s programming that I felt as though I had no thoughts left of my own.’
3 Alan B. Krueger, Daniel Kahneman, Claude Fischler, David Schkade, Norbert Schwarz and Arthur A. Stone, ‘Time use and subjective well-being in France and the US’, Social Indicators Research, 93 (2009), 7–18.
4 Annette Lareau, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race and Family Life, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
5 Annette Lareau writes that most of the middle-class families she observed were frenetically busy, with parents working full-time, then shopping, cooking, overseeing baths and homework, and driving kids back and forth to activities. ‘Things are so hectic that the house sometimes seems to become a holding pattern between activities,’ she writes.
6 Robert Pear, ‘Married and Single Parents Spending More Time with Children, Study Finds’, New York Times, 17 October 2006.
9: Caca Boudin
1 Debra Ollivier, What French Women Know About Love, Sex, and Other Matters of Heart and Mind, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2009.
11: I Adore This Baguette
1 Jean M. Twenge, W. Keith Campbell and Craig A. Foster, ‘Parenthood and marital satisfaction: a meta-analytic review’, Journal of Marriage and Family, 65: 3 (August 2003), 574–83.
2 In a well-known 2004 study, working mothers in Texas said childcare was one of their most unpleasant daily activities. They preferred housework. Daniel Kahneman, et al., ‘A survey method for characterizing daily life experience: the day reconstruction method’, Science, 3 December 2004.
3 Ibid., Jean M. Twenge.
4 Dyck, Vera and Kerry Daly, ‘Rising to the challenge: fathers’ role in the negotiation of couple time’, Leisure Studies, 25:2 (2006), 201–217.
5 In the overall 2010 Global Gender Gap Index, created by the World Economic Forum, the UK ranked fifteenth, the United States ranked nineteenth and France ranked forty-sixth.
6 According to the French statistics agency Insee.
7 According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
8 In a 2008 study, 49 per cent of employed American men said they did as much or more childcare as their partners. But just 31 per cent of women saw it this way. The study is Ellen Galinsky, Kerstin Aumann and James T. Bond, Times Are Changing: Gender and Generation at Work and at Home, Families and Work Institute, 2009.
9 Ibid., Alan B. Krueger et al. French women spent about 15 per cent less time doing housework than the American women did.
10 Denise Bauer, Études et Résultats, ‘Le temps des parents après
une naissance’, Drees, April 2006.
12: You Just Have to Taste It
1 Nathalie Guignon, Marc Collet and Lucie Gonzalez, ‘La santé des enfants en grande section de maternelle en 2005–2006’, Études et resultats, September 2010.
2 National Child Measurement Programme, June 2010. Figures given are for 2008 and 2009.
3 Lemangeur-ocha.com, ‘France, Europe, the United States: what eating means to us: Interview with Claude Fischler and Estelle Masson’, posted online 16 January 2008.
13: It’s Me Who Decides
1 In an interview with Enfant Magazine, ‘Comment réussir à se faire obéir?’, October 2009.
2 ‘Les Français et la fessée’ by TNS Sofres/Logica for Dimanche Ouest France, 11 November 2009.
3 55 per cent also said that they oppose spanking.
4 Marcel Rufo, a well-known child-psychiatrist based in Marseille, says, ‘There are two generations of parents … Those of yesterday who were spanked and hit and who say, “We weren’t traumatized by it.” And then there are the parents of today, who I think are much better, because they’re more about understanding the child than about prohibiting things. The role of the parent is to give his view to the child, to explain things to him. The child will accept them.’ Le Figaro Magazine, 20 November 2009.
14: Let Him Live His Life
1 When French and American mothers were asked to rank the importance of ‘Not let[ting] the baby become too dependent on his or her mother’, American mothers ranked the statement 0.93 out of a possible 5. French mothers ranked it 3.36. The study, ‘French and American mothers’ childrearing beliefs: stimulating, responding, and long-term goals’ by Marie-Anne Suizzo, was published in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology in 2004.
2 Raymonde Carroll writes in Cultural Misunderstandings that American parents ‘avoid as much as possible criticizing their children, making fun of their tastes, or telling them constantly “how to do things”’.
3 Getting 16:20 is a ‘rare and outstanding achievement’, according to a report prepared by the University of Cambridge exam board, for British universities. This was reported in the Economist, 30 September 2010, ‘A Chorus of Disapproval’.
4 This creates a problem for social scientists when they try to compare life in America and France. ‘Americans tend to be more emphatic when reporting their well-being,’ say the authors of that study of women in Ohio and Rennes. Americans were more likely to choose extremes like ‘very satisfied’ and ‘not at all satisfied’, whereas French women avoided these. The researchers adjusted their findings to account for this.
5 Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children, New York: Twelve, 2009.
Epilogue: The Future in French
1 ‘For Françoise Dolto, a desire is not a need, it shouldn’t necessarily be satisfied, but we should listen to it and speak about it, which makes all the difference,’ says Muriel Djéribi-Valentin, interviewed by Jacqueline Sellem in ‘Françoise Dolto: quand l’enfant est un sujet à part entière’, translated by Kieran O’Meara for l’Humanité in English.
Acknowledgements
I am extremely grateful to Marianne Velmans at Transworld; to my agents, Suzanne Gluck and Eugenie Furniss; and to Ann Godoff and Virginia Smith at The Penguin Press.
My profound thanks go to Sapna Gupta for her astute reading of the manuscript. Adam Kuper gave me advice and encouragement when I needed it most. Pauline Harris provided expert help with research. Ken Druckerman didn’t just comment on the early chapters; he also accepted packages on my behalf.
Merci to my posse of mother-readers: Christine Tacconet, Brooke Pallot, Dietlind Lerner, Amelia Relles, Sharon Galant, and the heroic Hannah Kuper, who read the chapters on pregnancy while having contractions herself.
For their general support, often in the form of food or shelter, thanks to Scott Wenger, Joanne Feld, Adam Ellick, Jeffrey Sumber, Kari Snick, Patrick Weil, Adelyn Escobar, Shana Druckerman, Marsha Druckerman, Steve Fleischer, and Nancy and Ronald Gelles. Thanks to my colleagues on the rue Bleue for their camaraderie, parenting tips, and lessons on how to enjoy lunch.
I am indebted to the many French families who let me hang around with them, and to the people whose introductions made all that hanging around possible: Valérie Picard, Cécile Agon, Hélène Toussaint, William Oiry, Véronique Bouruet-Aubertot, Gail Negbaur, Lucie Porcher, Émilie Walmsley, Andrea Ipaktchi, Jonathan Ross, Robynne Pendariès, Benjamin Benita and Laurence Kalmanson. Thanks to Crèche Cour Debille and Crèche Enfance et Découverte, especially Marie-Christine Barison, Anne-Marie Legendre, Sylvie Metay, Didier Trillot, Alexandra Van-Kersschaver and Fatima Abdullarif. Special gratitude goes to the family of Fanny Gerbet.
It’s much easier to write a parenting book when you’re blessed with extraordinary parents – Bonnie Green and Henry Druckerman. It’s also a gift to be married to someone who’s better at what I do than I am. I couldn’t have written this book without the encouragement and tolerance of my husband, Simon Kuper. He critiqued every draft and, in so doing, made me a better writer.
Finally, thanks to Leo, Joel and Leila (rhymes with sky-la). This is what Mummy was doing in her office. I hope that one day you’ll think it was worth it.
Index
The page references in this index correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.
aggression, physical 288
America see France and America (differences)
American parents see Anglophone parents
Anglophone parents 4–5
authority 273, 274–6
birth 36–7
breast-feeding 146–7
concerted cultivation 170–3
date nights 222, 230
feeding babies 70
guilt 177
housework 233
limits 85, 86, 88
narrated play 168–9, 170
nights 45–6, 47, 54, 61
patience 84
pregnancy 22–4
support group (Paris) 35
attention 3
au revoir 188
authoritarian model of parenting 108–9
authority 268–82
Anglophone parents 273, 274–6
big eyes 284–5
cadre 86, 106–7, 262, 279–82, 287, 290–1
calm attitude 268, 284
discipline 106
éducation 7, 9, 77, 92, 286
French parents 277–82, 286–8
limits 85, 86, 88
Marcelli 289–91, 292
saying no 270–1, 295
autonomy 299–307, 314–15
awakening 101, 104–5, 291
babies 43–4, 68, 70–2, 94
see also sleep
baking 79–80
bébés dans l’eau 98
bedtime 288–9
bêtises (small acts of naughtiness) 197, 287
big eyes (les gros yeux) 284–5
bilingual, being 183, 194–7
birth 36–8
Bitoun, Pierre 149, 152
Bloom, Paul 119
blossoming see awakening
bonjour 188–9, 190, 192–3
books, children’s 197–200
breast-feeding 63, 146–52
British parents see Anglophone parents
Bronson, Po 312
Bruckner, Pascal 236
caca boudin (caca sausage) 182–3, 203–4
cadre (framework) 86, 106–7, 262, 279–82, 287, 290–1
calm attitude
authority 268, 284
Cohen 56
French mothers 145, 176
meals 248, 281
parents 91
parisienne 17
pregnancy 29, 30, 31, 40
sage 76, 109, 315
waiting 75
>
caprices (whims) 91
carnet de santé 43–4
Carroll, Raymonde 309
child development 100–5
child-king syndrome 6–7
children’s books 197–200
chocolate 261
Cohen, Michel 54–8, 66, 169
Commission Menus 248–52
concerted cultivation 170–3
controlled crying 48, 64–5, 68
couples, importance of 227–31
crèches 121–6
applying to 128–30
daily routine 131–7
as microcosm of French parenting 133
workers 138–9
see also Commission Menus
crying it out see controlled crying
date nights 222, 230
Dati, Rachida 179
daycare see crèches
Denisot, Michel 163, 164
discipline 106
see also authority
Dolto, Françoise 101, 109–16, 175, 287, 301
Dusoulier, Clotilde 285
eating
babies 70–2, 94
chocolate 261–2
Commission Menus 248–52
crèches 136–7
eating out 2, 241
foods, introducing 245–8, 253–5
French/American differences 3, 242–4
goûter 80–1
losing baby weight 155–7
meals 81–2, 248, 255–7, 263–5, 281
pregnancy, during 30–1, 34
sweets 259–61
école maternelle (nursery school) 183–7
éducation 7, 9, 77, 92, 286
English language 202
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