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Every other culture parents better than we do ;)
So this article is creating a little stir on the mommy blogs. The gist is that French parents don't subsume themselves in their kids, they make their kids adapt to them, and parents are thereby happier while their kids are better behaved.
For those of you who can't roll your eyes enough, here is a hilarious, and short, response to it from HuffPost.
Mais Non!
Finally, and here's where I hope Ssinca is lurking and will chime in, I had read in another article on the topic that French moms are typically more apt to whack their kids.
This is interesting to me, because I just can't buy that French moms just use a special "tone" when telling their kids what to do. Lord knows I try to make my voice downright scary, and sometimes my girls just laugh at me.
(And now I'm an a-hole, because I have to post and run. But I was dying to know what y'all thought! I'll be back after lunch.)
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Every other culture parents better than we do ;)
She has The Look, The Tone and we didn't dare interrupt her while she was chatting with another adult. There was never a threat there, but we knew that, unless someone was bleeding, the adults were not to be interrupted. ::shrug::
Until our friends/family started having kids, I thought those were normal expectations.
They've got nothing on Tiger Moms.
rawr, bitches.
Same with us. And I'm trying really hard to maintain that attitude with my kids, and to not be cowed by the presence of other parents that are more lenient and whose judgment I fear. Even though I think these articles/books are intentionally hyperbolic and simplistic, I'm happy to see the pendulum swinging back away from overly indulgent and permissive parenting. The lack of manners and respect for adults I've witnessed among the youth has really annoyed me. Kids these days!
I am officially old. ::takes out dentures::
[CIA, if you're lurking, don't be mad! i'm going back to work, i promise!! ;-) ]
I agree with you on the articles/books being intentionally hyperbolic and simplistic and I too, would love to see the pendulum swing toward the "discipline your kids for Pete's sake!" camp, but I don't think articles like this help matters at all. Maybe I'm cynical, but it seems like for every one person that reads this, thinks carefully about their own parenting choices, and comes to reason that there are probably benefits and drawbacks to both styles of parenting, there are 10 more that roll their eyes, applaud themselves for not being a tight@ss, and get further entrenched in their own ideology. And given the way it's written, I don't blame them. I'd be defensive, too. Heck, I'm not even a parent and my hackles were a little raised at the idea that because I'm American, I'm lumped in with the permissive mom that caves to her child's every whim.
It's sort of like Facebook political discourse, it doesn't contribute to the solution or even an understanding, it just contributes to the noise.
/steps off soapbox
I see you, young lady!!! Don't hide behind those dentures! You have a chapter to finish. TODAY.
I already use a stern voice, have more or less perfected The Look, and think that children should play on their own.
Where are my perfect, French, non-tantrum throwing children!??? THIS IS A TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE!
Haha! That's what I'm saying!
sxb317- I agree that it's annoying how well the market plays on parental guilt. I generally stay away from parenting books and go with my instincts about what optimally meets the needs of my, DH, and the kiddos. I even avoided venues like this board until my third pregnancy, just because I didn't want to heighten my own parenting insecurities. But now I feel confident enough to take away some good stuff and shrug off the rest.
Chicklit- Good point. In general, play on weird cultural hang-ups, like the age-old American hang up on being as cool as the French, is a lame way to argue a point.
As someone in my late 30s, I also grew up with very demanding parents. I think it was the norm of that era, but I think my parents had a great balance of "you do what you are told without questioning and never make less than and A at school" and "if you are going to fight, fight with your brothers outside, and I'll see you at dinner time." So there was that balance of freedom with the children and total obedience to the parents. So yes, I agree with you that this is the same parenting style of the US in the 70s.
Now, as far as this article goes (the first one), you could substitute a lot of cultures in place of French. This author had experience with French culture, so that's what she wrote about. My husband grew up outside of the US until he was 18 (Spain, Italy, and Mexico), as did one of my closest friends (Brazil). They both have identical views on this type of parenting, and if you get both of them talking about something as simple as birthday parties here in the US, they'll get into heated discussions agreeing about the topic.
I myself want independence from my children. Since I homeschool my son 3 days a week, we do a lot of talking about 'when it's time to work, we work. when it's time to play, we play.' I'm extremely proud on days that he gets that concept. On days that he's constantly at my feet not evening letting me make a phone call, I go bonkers.
And marrying into a different culture from my own, I can say that evenings with my husband's friends and family (with children) are completely different from evenings with our American friends. On the non-American side, evenings are spent around the dinner table, talking, drinking wine, etc. while the kids are off playing by themselves for hours. My kids fall into this routine easily since they're around it a lot, and I'm happy about that. We have a Spanish couple that we spent time with who also have 2 kids, and at the end of the evening, the kids are usually in each other's PJs and passed out on the couch from exhaustion from playing--and we hadn't seen them all evening. Of course we hear their playing and talking and giggling all night. On the American side, evenings are often spent either 1)away from the children (children with a sitter), or 2)going back and forth between adult conversation and entertaining the children. So for that, I do think the article is spot on.
Chicklit--Bravo!
Right?! Good grief, maybe my children should be reading these damn books so they can get on the same damn page!