My Parenting Style Decoded: Im French! Who Knew?

Parenting these days is a complicated matter. At least, it seems to be, judging by the way so many parents live their lives.  Constantly frazzled, alternating between hollering at their kids and smothering them with attention, parents have become victims of their own best intentions. Parenting makes up so much of people's identity these days, that you wonder what happens when these kids fly the coop?

Trust me, I’m not criticizing. I was there. I put so much effort into distracting the kids from seeing the failing family unit during my marriage that the day after I got separated, I had more than one moment of bewilderment.  My parenting style has shifted since then, but my love for my kids hasn’t.  I decided that I wanted the kids to see who I was as a person and  I wanted to know them as people, not just kids. I wanted them to learn independence. These became our basics:

1)      I gave them more responsibility, we all need to chip in around here. Kids have virtually no responsibility anymore. If we look back at how much kids USED to do back in the day, it’s much more and they turned out well because of working hard.  This is, however, the most difficult of the basics to get the kids on board with, as it involved cleaning.

2)      I didn’t hang up with friends or family because the kids were doing the “mommy, mommy, mommy…” deal in the background.  If we visit friends, they are not allowed to interrupt. They can politely wait for a break in a conversation, and say “excuse me”, but I want them to learn respect and see Mom nurturing relationships. I, in turn, do not interrupt them just because I’m the mom and I can.

3)      They make their own decisions (outside of the household rules/chores/schoolwork) and deal with the repercussions.  We talk through the options, the pluses and minuses of each, and they make the choice. So when my son decided to make a huge Hummer for his derby car recently, versus a sleek race car, he understood that it was bulky and may not come in first. Still, he chose the Hummer. When it didn't win, he was okay with it. He was proud of his different truck, and his hard work on it. But it was his choice.

4)      I don’t dumb anything down. I use adult words and explain them. I don’t shy away from difficult talks, and I don’t hide emotions from my kids. I explain my behavior. It keeps our lines of communication open, especially when explaining why I’m “making” them do something like school work or not jumping off the top bunk.

When I stumbled upon this article yesterday, I realized this is very much my parenting method. I still have weird “American” idiosyncrasies about safety; I won’t let my kids walk with a lollipop in their mouth because I’m afraid they’re going to trip and impale themselves. How often does that EVER happen?!
The original article can be found in full here. This is compiled by an American mom who raised her children in France for some time, and she’s outlining the differences between American and French moms. It’s pretty enlightening, especially if you tend to lean towards this method of parenting and are feeling like the minority in present day, American parenting system.


What Druckerman found -- and what most expatriates discover -- is that where childhood trumps adulthood in the States, the opposite is largely true in France. Kids are not king in France -- and if you treat them as such, they quickly become tyrants with a sense of entitlement that sticks around well into adulthood. Though they love their kids passionately like everyone else, the French generally don't subvert their identities to the lives of their children.


Boundaries, in other words, are good, particularly in protecting the sanctity of parents' private life. (No, Marie-Louise, you may not sleep in mommy and daddy's bed. And yes, Jean-Pierre, you must sit at the table every night for family dinner and eat correctly.) Kids are essentially expected to adapt to the grown-up world and not the other way around.


And most impressive, perhaps, as Druckerman discovered, "French women certainly don't suffer the same guilt about everything." No, they certainly don't. Guilt seems to be the American mother's evil stepsister.


Somehow in the last decade or so, trophy wives were replaced with trophy kids in the States, parenting became a verb, and an already sizeable how-to industry catering to fretful parents became colossal. (Amy Chua's "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" is the latest manifesto to sand-blast fear and doubt into every parent's heart.) Meanwhile, the French kept doing what they'd done for centuries, parenting with an iron fist in a velvet glove without forsaking pleasure in life. As Druckerman notes:
"While I kind of assumed that when I had a baby, my marriage and my body was going to suffer, and I wouldn't have any time for myself, the French just don't assume that. They don't have any illusions, but won't subjugate themselves entirely to the will of the child."

It certainly helps that the French government actually underwrites family values rather than paying lip service to them. French parents enjoy an infrastructure of social benefits that we can only dream of, including four to six weeks of paid vacation and excellent free education that starts with nursery schools and extends all the way to universities. Though the French and their system are far from perfect, when it comes to parenting their culture by and large nurtures common sense and autonomy.

On that latter point, Druckerman states:
"The French are absolutely not draconian about their own rules. They actually believe that children are more capable, in some ways, and believe in their autonomy. They just give a clear framework in which they can learn and see it's a process -- you don't suddenly arrive at being a brilliant parent."
Food for thought! French food. Mmmm....croissants....wait. What was I talking about?