Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting

by Pamela Druckerman

  French kids don’ch sot get a huge amount of chocolate; it’s a small bar, or a drink’s worth, or a strip on a pain au chocolat. They eat it happily and don’t expect a second helping. But chocolate is a nutritional fixture for them, rather than a forbidden treat. Bean once comes home from the summer camp at her school with a chocolate sandwich: a baguette with a bar of chocolate inside. I’m so surprised I take a picture of it. (I later learn that the chocolate sandwich—usually made with dark chocolate—is a classic French goûter.)

  With sweets, too, the cadre is key. French parents aren’t afraid of sugary foods. In general, they will serve cake or cookies at lunch or at the goûter. But they don’t give kids chocolate or rich desserts with dinner. “What you eat in the evening just stays with you for years,” Fanny explains.

  After dinner, Fanny typically serves fresh fruit or a fruit compote—those ubiquitous little tubs of applesauce with other pureed fruits mixed in. (These come with or without added sugar.) There’s a compotes section in French supermarkets. Fanny says she also buys all different types of plain yogurt and then gets jams for Lucie to mix in.

  As in most realms, French parents aim at mealtimes to give kids both firm boundaries and freedom within those boundaries. “It’s things like sitting at the table and tasting everything,” Fanny explains. “I’m not forcing her to finish, just to taste everything and sit with us.”

  I’m not sure exactly when I started serving my kids meals in courses. But I now do it at every meal. It’s a stroke of French genius. This starts with breakfast. When the kids sit down, I put plates of cut-up fruit on the table. They nibble on this while I’m getting their toast or cereal ready. They can have juice at breakfast, but they know that for lunch and dinner we drink water. Even the union organizer doesn’t complain about that. We talk about how clean water makes us feel.

  At lunch and dinner I serve vegetables first, when the kids are hungriest. We don’t move on to the main course until they at least make a dent in the starter. Usually they finish it. Except when I introduce an entirely new dish, I rarely have to resort to the tasting rule. If Leo won’t eat a food the first time I serve it, he’ll usually agree to at least smell it, and he’ll take a nibble soon after that.

  Bean sometimes exploits the letter of the rule by eating a single piece of zucchini and then insisting that she has fulfilled her obligation. She recently declared that she will taste everything “except salad,” by which she means the actual green lettuce leaves. But for the most part, she quite likes the starters we serve. These include sliced avocado, tomato in a vinaigrette, or steamed broccoli with a bit of soy sauce. We all have a good chuckle when I serve carottes rapées—shredded carrots in a vinaigrette—and try to pronounce it.

  My kids come to the table hungry because, except for the goûter, they don’t snack. It helps that other kids around them aren’t snacking either. But even so, getting to this point required a steely will. I simply don’t cave in to demands for a filling piece of bread or a whole banana between meals. And as the kids have gotten older, they’ve mostly stopped askly 2em">Goûter.”

  I try not to be too fanatical about this (or as Simon describes it, “more French than the French”). When I’m cooking I occasionally give the kids a little preview of dinner—a piece of tomato or a few chickpeas. When I’m introducing a new ingredient, like pine nuts, I’ll offer them a few bites of it while I’m cooking, to get them in the mood. I might even give them a sprig of parsley (though I wouldn’t call it a snack). Obviously they drink water whenever they want.

  Sometimes keeping my kids in the food cadre feels like a lot of work. Especially when Simon travels, I’m often tempted to skip the starter, plop a bowl of pasta in front of them, and call it dinner. When I occasionally do this, they’re quite happy to gobble it down. There’s certainly no clamoring for salad and vegetables.

  But the kids don’t have a choice. Like a French mom, I’ve accepted that it’s my duty to teach them to like a variety of tastes and to eat meals that are équilibrés. Also like a French mom, I try to keep the whole day’s menu balanced in my head. We mostly stick to the French formula of having large, protein-heavy lunches and lighter, carbohydrate-driven dinners with vegetables. The kids do eat a lot of pasta, though I try to vary the shape and the sauce. Whenever I have time, I make a big pot of soup for dinner (though I can’t bring myself to puree it) and serve it with rice or bread.

  It’s no surprise that the kids find the food more appetizing when it’s made with fresh ingredients and it looks good. I consider the balance of colors on their plates and occasionally slip in some slices of tomato or avocado if dinner looks monotone. We have a collection of colorful melamine plates. But for dinner I use white, which makes the colors of the food pop and signals to the kids that we’re having a grown-up meal.

  I try to let them help themselves as much as possible. Beginning when the boys were quite young, I passed around a bowl of grated Parmesan on pasta nights and let them sprinkle it on all by themselves. They get to put a spoonful of sugar in their hot chocolates and occasionally in their yogurts. Bean frequently asks for a slice of Camembert, or a hunk of whatever cheese we’ve got, at the end of the meal. Except for special occasions, we don’t do cake or ice cream at night. I still won’t serve them chocolate sandwiches.

  It’s taken a while to make all this second nature. It helps that the boys in particular really like to eat. One of their teachers at the crèche calls them gourmands, which is a polite way of saying that they eat a lot. She says their favorite word is encore (more). They’ve developed the annoying habit, possibly learned at the crèche, of holding up their plates at the end of the meal to show that they’ve finished. Whatever sauce or liquid is left spills onto the table. (I think at the crèche they’ve already mopped up the liquid with slices of baguette.)

  Sweets are no longer non grata in our house. Now that we offer them in moderation, Bean eraighdoesn’t treat each piece of candy as if it’s her last. When it’s really cold out, I make the kids hot chocolate in the morning. I serve it with yesterday’s baguette, softened slightly in the microwave, and slices of apple, which the kids dip in their drinks. It feels like a very French breakfast.

  * * *

  hélène’s recipe for chocolat chaud

  (makes about 6 cups)

  1–2 teaspoons cocoa powder

  1 liter low-fat milk

  sugar to taste

  In a saucepan, mix one to two heaping teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder with a small splash of cold or room-temperature milk. Blend well to form a thick paste. Add the rest of the milk and stir (the chocolate should spread evenly into the milk). Cook over medium heat until the mixture boils. Allow the hot chocolate to cool, skim off any skin that has formed, then pour it into mugs with spoons. Let kids add their own sugar at the table.

  Quick breakfast version

  In a large mug, mix 1 teaspoon cocoa powder and a small splash of milk; blend into a paste. Fill the rest of mug with milk and mix. Heat the mug in the microwave for two minutes, or until very hot. Stir in a teaspoon of sugar. Pour a bit of this hot cocoa concentrate into several mugs. Add cold or room-temperature milk to each mug. Serve with a crusty baguette or any toasted bread.

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  it’s me who decides

  Leo, the swarthy twin, does everything quickly. I don’t mean that he’s gifted. I mean that he moves at twice the speed of ordinary humans. By age two, he’s developed a runner’s physique from dashing from room to room. He even speaks quickly. As Bean’s birthday approaches, he begins singing “Happybirthdaytoya!” in a high-pitched squeak; the whole song is over in a few seconds.

  It’s very hard to wrangle this little tornado. Already, he can practically outrun me. When I go to the park with him, I’m in constant motion, too. He seems to regard the gates around play areas as merely an invitation to exit.

  One of the most impressive parts of French parenting—and perhaps the toughest one to master—is a
uthority. Many French parents I meet have an easy, calm authority with their children that I can only envy. Their kids actually listen to them. French children aren’t constantly dashing off, talking back, or engaging in prolonged negotiations. But how exactly do French parents pull this off? And how can I acquire this magical authority, too?

  One Sunday morning, my neighbor Frederique witnesses me trying to cope with Leo when we bring our kids to the park. Frederique is a travel agent from Burgundy. She’s in her midforties, with a raspy voice and a no-nonsense manner. After years of paperwork she adopted Tina, a beautiful redheaded three-year-old, from a Russian orphanage. At the time of our outing, she’s been a mother for all of three months.

  But already Frederique is teaching me about éducation. Just by virtue of being French, she has a whole different vision of what’s possible and pas possible. This becomes clear in the sandbox. Frederique and I are sitting on a ledge at its perimeter, trying to talk. But Leo keeps dashing outside the gate surrounding the sandbox. Each time he does this, I get up to chase him, scold him, and drag him back while he screams. It’s irritating and exhausting.

  At first, Frederique watches this little ritual in silence. Then, without any condescension, she says that if I’m running after Leo all the time, we won’t be able to indulge in the small pleasure of sitting and chatting for a few minutes.

  “That’s true,” I say. “But what can I do?”

  Frederique says I should be sterner with Leo, so he knows that it’s not okay to leave the sandbox. “Otherwise you’re running after him all the time, it doesn’t work,” she says. In my mind, spending the afternoon chasing Leo is inevitable. In her mind, it’s pas possible.

  Frederique’s strategy doesn’t seem to hold out much promise for me. I point out that I’ve been scolding Leo for the last twenty minutes. Frederique smiles. She says I need to make my “no” stronger, and to really believe in it.

  The next time Leo tries to run outside the gate, I say “no” more sharply than usual. He leaves anyway. I follow and drag him back.

  “You see?” I say to Frederique. “It’s not possible.”

  Frederique smiles again and says I need to make my “no” more convincing. What I lack, she says, is the belief that he’s really going to listen. She tells me not to shout but rather to speak with more conviction.

  I’m scared that I’ll terrify him.

  “Don’t worry,” Frederique says, urging me on.

  Leo doesn’t listen the next time either. But I gradually feel my “nos” coming from a more convincing place. They’re not louder, but they’re more self-assured. I feel like I’m impersonating a different sort of parent.

  By the fourth try, when I’m finally brimming with conviction, Leo approaches the gate but—miraculously—doesn’t open it. He looks back and eyes me warily. I widen my eyes and try to look disapproving.

  After about ten minutes, Leo stops trying to leave altogether. He seems to forget about the gate and just plays in the sandbox with Tina, Joey, and Bean. Soon Frederique and I are chatting, with our legs stretched out in front of us.

  I’m shocked that Leo suddenly views me as an authority figure.

  “See that,” Frederique says, not gloating. “It was your tone of voice.”

  She points out that Leo doesn’t appear to be traumatized. For the moment—and possibly for the first time ever—he actually seems like a French child. With all three kids suddenly sage at once, I can feel my shoulders falling a bit. It’s an experience I’ve never really had in the park before. Maybe this is what it’s like to be a French mother?

  I feel relaxed, but also foolish. If it’s that easy, why haven’t I been doing this for years? Saying no isn’t exactly a cutting-edge parenting technique. What’s new is Frederique’s coaching me to drop my ambivalence and be certain about my own authority. What she tells me springs from her own upbringing and deepest beliefs. It comes out sounding like common sense.

  Frederique has the same certainty that what’s most pleasant for us parents—being able to have a relaxing chat at the park while the kids play—is also best for children. This seems to be true. Leo is a lot less stressed than he was half an hour earlier. Instead of a constant cycle of escape and reimprisonment, he’s playing happily with the other kids.

  I’m ready to bottle my new technique—the fully felt “no”—and sell it off the back of a wagon. But Frederique warns me that there’s no magic elixir for making kids respect your authority. It’s always a work in progress. “There are no fixed rules,” she says. “You have to keep changing what you do.”

  That’s unfortunate. So what else explains why French parents like Frederique have so much authority with their kids? How exactly do French parents summon this authority, day after day, dinner after dinner? And how can I get some more of it?

  A French colleague of mine says that if I’m interested in authority, I must speak to her cousin Dominique. She says that Dominique, a French singer who’s raising three kids in New York, is an unofficial expert in the differences between French and American parents.

  Dominique, forty-three, looks like the heroine of a nouvelle vague film. She has dark hair, delicate features, and an intense, gazellelike gaze. If I were thinner, better looking, and could sing, I’d say that she and I were living mirror-image lives: She’s a Parisian who’s raising her children in New York. I’m an ex–New Yorker who’s raising kids in Paris. Living in France has made me calmer and less neurotic. Whereas despite Dominique’s sultry good looks, she has adopted the bubbly self-analysis that comes from living in Manhattan. She speaks enthusiastic French-accented English, peppered with “like” and “oh my God.”

  Dominique arrived in New York as a twenty-two-year-old studentar-iv . She planned to study English for six months, then go home. But New York quickly became home. “I felt really good and stimulated and had great energy, something I hadn’t felt in a long, long time in Paris,” she says. She married an American musician.

  Beginning when she first got pregnant, Dominique was also enchanted with American parenting. “There’s a great sense of community that, in a way, you don’t have as much in France . . . If you like yoga and you’re pregnant, boom! You get into this group of pregnant women doing yoga.”

  She also started to notice the way kids are treated in the United States. At a big Thanksgiving with her husband’s family, she was astonished to see that when a three-year-old girl arrived, all twenty adults at the table stopped talking and focused on the child.

  “I thought, oh, this is incredible, this culture. It’s like the kid is a God, it’s really amazing. I’m like, no wonder Americans are so confident and so happy, and the French are so depressed. Here we are—just look at the attention.”

  But over time Dominique started to view this type of attention differently. She noticed that the same three-year-old girl who’d stopped conversation at Thanksgiving was developing an oversized sense of entitlement.

  “I was like, ‘that’s it, this kid really annoys me.’ She’s coming and she’s thinking that because she’s here, everyone has to stop their life and pay attention.”

  Dominique, whose own kids are eleven, eight, and two, says her doubts grew when she overheard students at her children’s preschool responding to teachers’ instructions with, “You are not the boss of me.” (“You would never see that in France, never,” she says.) When she and her husband were invited for dinner at the homes of American friends with young kids, she often ended up doing most of the cooking, because the hosts were busy trying to make their children stay in bed.

  “Instead of just being firm and saying, ‘No more of that, I’m not giving you more attention, this is bedtime, and this is parents’ time, now it’s my time as an adult with my friends, you’ve had your time, this is our time. And go to bed, that’s it,’—well, they don’t do that. I don’t know why they don’t do that, but they don’t do that. They can’t do it. They keep just serving the kids. And I see that and I’m just blown away.”
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  Dominique still adores New York and much prefers American schools to French ones. But in matters of parenting, she has increasingly reverted to French habits, with their clear rules and boundaries.

  “The French way sometimes is too harsh. They could be a little more gentle and friendly with kids, I think,” she says. “But I think the American way takes it way to the extreme, of raising kids as if they are ruling the world.”

  I find it hard to argue with my would-be doppelgänger. I can picture those dinner parties she’s describing. American parents—myself included—are often deeply ambivalent about being inaboh my wou charge. In theory, we believe that kids need limits. This is a truism of American parenting. However, in practice, we’re often unsure where these limits should be or we’re uncomfortable policing them.

  “I feel more guilty for getting angry than I feel angry,” is how a college friend of Simon’s justifies his three-year-old daughter’s bad behavior. A girlfriend of mine says her three-year-old son bit her. But she “felt bad” yelling at him because she knew that it would make him cry. So she let it go.

  Anglophone parents worry that being too strict will break their kids’ creative spirits. A visiting American mother was shocked when she saw a playpen in our apartment in Paris. Apparently, back home, even playpens are now seen as too confining. (We didn’t know. In Paris they’re de rigueur.)

  A mother from Long Island tells me about her badly behaved nephew, whose parents were—in her view—alarmingly permissive. But she says the nephew has since grown up to become head of oncology at a major American medical center, vindicating the fact that he was an unbearable child. “I think kids who are very intelligent and not much disciplined are insufferable when they’re kids. But I think they are less stifled creatively when they’re older,” she says.