Are French Parents Better at Parenting than their American Counterparts?

By now, many of us will have heard of Pamela Druckerman.  I heard about her for the first time over dinner with friends last Friday night.  If you haven’t heard of her, you’re probably asking: who is she and what’s the controversy?

Pamela Druckerman is a former staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal. She has a Master's in International Affairs from Columbia University, and has reported from Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Jerusalem, Paris and New York. She currently lives in Paris, which is the backdrop for her current book.

It’s with the journalistic gusto and integrity (I have to say) that she throws herself into her books, the latest of which has got the mom blogosphere murmuring, to say the least.  This time she tackles parenting: “Bringing up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting”. 

If there’s one thing I’ve learned on the playground and at school pick-up, it’s to tread very carefully around the topic of how to bring up your kids.  So it amuses me to read books that take a very strong stand – can you say Tiger Mom?  It’s early days yet, but will Pamela Druckerman take the same beating as Amy Chua.

A well-presented book with facts backing up its statements, the main point of Ms. Druckerman’s book is that French parents don’t hover over their kids and that they adhere to an unspoken “code”.  She refers to “La Pause”, where French parents will take a moment before running to their screaming children, crying babies or responding to their demands.  By not packing their kids’ schedules with activities, not hovering at playdates and not letting their kids feel like they are the center of attention, French parents bring up independent, respectful kids.

It’s easy to make broad-sweeping statements on subjects as fractious as parenting.  Controversy sells.  On a macro-scale, some of these statements could be true, but what happens when you start looking at individual families?  We’re all different, our kids are different and we deal with situations the best we can with the knowledge we have and with the best intentions.  I’m sure even French parents cover the gamut of ‘helicopter’ to ‘free-range’ parents.  My motto is unless you have walked in the other parent’s shoes, you don’t know what their situation is like. 

What do you think?