Mon dieu! Some news (well, okay, not news so much as opinion) from across the pond: French moms are not just thinner than their American counterparts; they’re meaner, too. (And Amy Chua thought she had cornered the market on tough.)
A friend just sent me this link, to a 2007 article in an U.K. paper (the Telegraph) by an American journalist married to a Frenchman. Janine diGiovanni may (inexplicably, to my ears) describe non-French mamans as “Anglo-Saxon” mothers (who, me, Anglo-Saxon? My people are from Sicily!), but she makes excellent observations (some of them uncomfortable to modern American parents’ ears, if not mine) about the parenting differences she sees among her Paris contemporaries.
Here’s what she says, essentially:
- French mothers are less squishy than American moms; they are strict, unafraid of enforcing rules. “It’s always shocking,” a friend of diGiovanni’s is quoted as saying in the article, “to hear the shrill ‘ça suffit’ that is the refrain of all French mothers. They speak with sharpness that is alarming to the uninitiated.” (ça suffit means “that’s enough!”, and you don’t have to wonder — I say it all. the. time.).
- French mothers prefer their adult lives to remain separate from their children’s lives — which is why you don’t see precocious tots dominating the dinner party with cute tricks involving mashed potatoes and the new song they learned in preschool. The kids are in the other room, already fed, while Maman and Papa entertain guests. There is something, explains the French godmother of diGiovanni’s son, called l’heure de l’adulte, which is when the children “…go away and leave us alone.” (We don’t have many dinner parties in these parts, but we do have our own version of l’heure de l’adulte. It’s called bedtime. Now.)
- French parents believe more firmly than American ones in institutions, such as schools. When petite Sophie is in the ecole, the teacher’s in charge, and the parent steps back. Nothing like our superinvolvement in our kids’ school lives, non? The kind where you know in which cabinet the kindergarten teacher keeps the extra Elmer’s?
- French parents don’t appear to be worried about stifling their children’s creativity with strictness; in contrast, they seem more concerned with setting boundaries than with letting them run out of bounds. This, to me, resonates as more “mean” than letting your child eat sand to learn the invaluable lesson that he shouldn’t eat sand (an anecdote mentioned in the article) or having an old woman in the park pinch your kid’s ear and say, “listen to your mother!” (also related by di Giovanni). It’s hard for American parents to place the enforcing of boundaries — in the service of some future time when your kid will need them — in front of the almighty pursuit of creativity. I’m not against creativity, for the record; but I’m not convinced that setting boundaries, sticking to rules, and even allowing the occasional real or metaphorical pinched ear is mutually exclusive with it.
Because, as di Giovanni appears to conclude (she waffles a little, but I’m going to say she concludes), French children seem, to her, to be better behaved than American ones, with their mashed potato creations interrupting the l’heure de l’adulte. She writes:
But as a result, you find beautifully brought up children, and many of my French friends who are parents will argue endlessly that instilling discipline and setting boundaries is the way of showing the utmost love.
Isn’t that the whole point? That it is precisely our utmost love for our children that does (or should) prompt us to think less about immediate comfort, and more about, you know, the future?
Here here! Great post. Love it. Another thing the French don’t do is “kids meals”. You won’t find mac n’ cheese or chicken nuggets on their menus. From what I know (and that is not too much), kids eat pretty much what the adults eat in France (and, I believe other parts of Europe). How I wish that were true here. While I do some of what the French parents do (like putting my and your kids at the tiny kitchen table while we eat on my large dining room table) and I don’t worry too much about stifling creativity (I, like you, do not think these things are mutually exclusive – there are plenty of opportunities to be creative that don’t include acting inappropriately, breaking rules, or just being downright annoying), I have failed at getting my kids to eat what we eat. To this day, this baffles me. I know I have to just give no other option, but they still just don’t eat sometimes. Take last night’s delicious and simple meal of spaghetti with bacon and peas (thanks for the recipe!). Phoebe picked out the spaghetti only (complaining all the while) and Jack ate nothing. Ce la vie.
Sally,
I have many friends just like you. They all make foods their children will eat. And all the while they marvel at what my kids do eat and ask for. Well I’m not a short order cook. One meal in my house is enough to prepare. I’m a mean mom.
My rule is simply this.
You have to take how ever many bites as you are old. Example if your 5 you take 5 bites. This applies to any and all foods on the plate set in front of my children.
They are now 13, 12 and 8 and they eat everything. My oldest may not like peas still, but he will eat his 13 bites and not quibble because he knows the rule.
I have involved them in cooking and finding new foods to try. We are very adventurous in the kitchen. New places to shop or grocery stores are our hunting grounds.
We have found Purple Cauliflower, purple fingerling potatoes, Star fruits, White asparagus… the list keeps growing.
Because I was a mean mother, my children know that there is more out there then Mac & cheese or Chicken nuggets.. *Shudders* Do you know what UN-nutrional junk is in those things?
If they don’t eat, they will not go hungry. A person can go almost 2 months without eating.. after on night I can almost guarantee your child will eat eventually what YOU put in front of them.
Loved this glimpse into French mothering. I’ve always thought that we as Americans err on the side of what I call pansy parenting. A little toughness is good. High expectations are healthy. Some separation from mom and dad should be part of the childhood experience. Maybe it’s time we learn something from the French and Amy Chua.
It’s probably easier when you can give your kids alcohol too. Just kidding! While I’m not the best at doing the boundaries thing, I think kids need boundaries, chores, discipline and rewards for real accomplishments not just for being who they are. While we want them to have freedom to be creative and express themselves and develop their full potential, we also have to keep in mind that they will be adults some day and it really doesn’t take long.
Thanks for this post. I do agree that many American parents are too soft, and many French children are well-behaved (I’m a lifelong francophile who travels to France often). However, books as Bringing Up Bebe just seem to play into our insecurities and the thought that everything French must be better. (Okay, I’ll give them the wine, the cheese, the crepes…) The real question is how these wonderfully behaved kids act as adults, and we all know that the French are often criticized for snobbism and impatience, and I don’t see that they are becoming world leaders in anything right now. As usual, the proof is in the pudding, isn’t it? I know a lot of American Mean Mommies who seem to be getting it right; see my post on ths subject, http://permissionslips.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/the-mean-mom-club/
Thanks for your comment, Linda! Mean Mommies club, I love it! When mom friends and family and acquaintances around me hear about my upcoming book, Mean Moms Rule!, they almost always come “out of the closet” as either a mean mom themselves, or at least a wannabe!
best,
Denise
Perhaps I was, unbeknownst to me, raised in France or alternately, perhaps we are actually raising our children in France in a parallel universe.
I’m not sure why these philosophies are so foreign to NA parents. They seem so common sense to me and how we’ve been raising our daughters now age 10 and 13.
The difference…Our family philosophy has always been raising them for the future.