Having read ‘The Battle Hymn of
the Tiger Mother’ a couple of years ago, and being appalled at much of the
draconian parenting advice in that book, I was happy to find that ‘Bringing up
Bebe’ espoused a much kinder, gentler, parenting style.
Pamela Druckerman is an American
mother of three, the last two being twins. She and her husband, who is British,
live in Paris. She didn’t plan to become a ‘French parent’. However, when her
oldest daughter was a ddler, she began to realize that most of the French
parents she saw with toddlers were having much less trouble with many things
she struggled with, such as getting them to sleep through the night, eat a
variety of healthy foods, eat those foods well with good table manners, accept
‘no’ without throwing a tantrum, and…well, you get the drift.
She began to talk to French
parents about how they did it; they didn’t know, really, they just did ‘what
you’re supposed to do’. So she also started researching French parenting, and
has come to some really interesting conclusions. For instance, they ‘teach’
their babies to sleep through the night. Most of them do so by the time they
are 4 months old. This isn’t the ‘sleep training’ method of letting them cry
until they go to sleep. It is helping them develop their natural sleep rhythms;
essentially listening to and trusting in, their own bodies.
Druckerman didn’t buy into, or adopt
all the aspects of French parenting that she learned about, but she did
discover that many of their methods work to develop happy, healthy children,
and adults who are around those children.
257 pages
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