“When I ask French parents what they most want for their children, they say things like "to feel comfortable in their own skin" and "to find their path in the world." They want their kids to develop their own tastes and opinions. In fact, French parents worry if their kids are too docile. They want them to have character. But they believe that children can achieve these goals only if they respect boundaries and have self-control. So alongside character, there has to be cadre.”
―
Pamela Druckerman,
Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“Within a few hours of meeting him, I realized that "love at first sight" just means feeling immediately and extremely calm with someone.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“The French believe that kids feel confident when they're able to do things for themselves, and do those things well. After children have learned to talk, adults don't praise them for saying just anything. They praise them for saying interesting things, and for speaking well.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“Yet the French have managed to be involved without becoming obsessive. They assume that even good parents aren't at the constant service of their children, and that there's no need to feel guilty about this. "For me, the evenings are for the parents." one Parisian mother tells me. "My daughter can be with us if she wants, but it's adult time.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“There are so few years to just be a child.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“My first intervention is to say, when your baby is born, just don't jump on your kid at night," Cohen says, "Give your baby a chance to self-soothe, don't automatically respond, even from birth.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“Like the French, he starts babies off on vegetables and fruits rather than bland cereals. He's not obsessed with allergies. He talks about "rhythm" and teaching kids to handle frustration. He values calm. And he gives real weight to the parents' own quality of life, not just to the child's welfare.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“Autonomy is something fundamental that your child needs. (Francoise Dolto said that by age six, a child should be able to do everything at home that concerns him.)” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“French parents don't worry that they're going to damage their kids by frustrating them. To the contrary, they think their kids will be damaged if they can't cope with frustration. They also treat coping with frustration as a core life skill. Their kids simply have to learn it. The parents would be remiss if they didn't teach it.” ― Pamela Druckerman
“In the United States, a four-year-old American kid isn’t obliged to greet me when he walks into my house. He gets to skulk in under the umbrella of his parents’ greeting. And in an American context, that’s supposed to be fine with me. I don’t need the child’s acknowledgment because I don’t quite count him as a full person; he’s in a separate kids’ realm. I might hear all about how gifted he is, but he never actually speaks to me. When I’m at a family luncheon back in the United States, I’m struck that the cousins and stepcousins at the table, who range in age from five to fourteen, don’t say anything at all to me unless I pry it out of them. Some can only muster one-word responses to my questions. Even the teenagers aren’t used to expressing themselves with confidence to a grown-up they don’t know well. Part of what the French obsession with bonjour reveals is that, in France, kids don’t get to have this shadowy presence. The child greets, therefore he is. Just as any adult who walks into my house has to acknowledge me, any child who walks in must acknowledge me, too. “Greeting is essentially recognizing someone as a person,” says Benoît, the professor. “People feel injured if they’re not greeted by children that way.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“When I tell her about the expression "MILF" ("Mom I'd like to Fuck"), she thinks it's hilarious. There's no French-language equivalent. In France, there's no a priori reason why a woman wouldn't be sexy just because she happens to have children. It's not uncommon to hear a Frenchman say that being a mother gives a woman an appealing air of plentitude (happiness and fulness of spirit).” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“[French] Parents see it as their job to bring the child around to appreciating this [food]. They believe that just as they must teach a child how to sleep, how to wait, and how to say bonjour, they must teach her how to eat.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“But in real life, the ideal Parisian woman is calm, discreet, a bit remote, and extremely decisive.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“The French are much more comfortable with the idea that their affair partner is just that—an affair partner,” writes Pamela Druckerman in her cross-cultural look at infidelity, Lust in Translation. Understanding that love and sex are different things, Druckerman says the French feel less need to “complain about their marriage to legitimize the affair in the first place.” But she found that Americans and British couples seemed to be reading from an entirely different script. “An affair, even a one-night stand, means a marriage is over,” Druckerman observed. “I spoke to women who, on discovering that their husbands had cheated, immediately packed a bag and left, because ‘that’s what you do.’ Not because that’s what they wanted to do—they just thought that was the rule. They didn’t even seem to realize there were other options…. I mean, really, like they’re reading from a script!” ― Christopher Ryan, Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality
“Frenchwomen don’t see pregnancy as a free pass to overeat, in part because they haven’t been denying themselves the foods they love—or secretly binging on those foods—for most of their adult lives. “Too often, American women eat on the sly, and the result is much more guilt than pleasure,” Mireille Guiliano explains in her intelligent book French Women Don’t Get Fat. “Pretending such pleasures don’t exist, or trying to eliminate them from your diet for an extended time, will probably lead to weight gain.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“Soul mate" isn't a pre-existing condition. It's an earned title. They're made over time.” ― Pamela Druckerman
“To grow up without risk is to risk not growing up.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bébé Day by Day: 100 Keys to French Parenting
“Awakening is about introducing a child to sensory experiences, including tastes. It doesn't always require the parent's active involvement. It can come from staring at the sky, smelling dinner as it's being prepared, or playing alone on a blanket. It's a way of sharpening the child's senses and preparing him to distinguish between different experiences. It's the first step toward teaching him to be a cultivated adult who knows how to enjoy himself. Awakening is a kind of training for children in how to profiter - to soak up the pleasure and richness of the moment.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“French parents are very concerned about their kids. They know about pedophiles, allergies, and choking hazards. They take reasonable precautions. But they aren't panicked about their children's well-being. This calmer outlook makes them better at both establishing boundaries and giving their kids some autonomy.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“Within a few hours of meeting him, I realized that "love at first sight" just means feeling immediately and extremely calm with someone.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“The French believe that kids feel confident when they're able to do things for themselves, and do those things well. After children have learned to talk, adults don't praise them for saying just anything. They praise them for saying interesting things, and for speaking well.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“Yet the French have managed to be involved without becoming obsessive. They assume that even good parents aren't at the constant service of their children, and that there's no need to feel guilty about this. "For me, the evenings are for the parents." one Parisian mother tells me. "My daughter can be with us if she wants, but it's adult time.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“There are so few years to just be a child.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“My first intervention is to say, when your baby is born, just don't jump on your kid at night," Cohen says, "Give your baby a chance to self-soothe, don't automatically respond, even from birth.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“Like the French, he starts babies off on vegetables and fruits rather than bland cereals. He's not obsessed with allergies. He talks about "rhythm" and teaching kids to handle frustration. He values calm. And he gives real weight to the parents' own quality of life, not just to the child's welfare.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“Autonomy is something fundamental that your child needs. (Francoise Dolto said that by age six, a child should be able to do everything at home that concerns him.)” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“French parents don't worry that they're going to damage their kids by frustrating them. To the contrary, they think their kids will be damaged if they can't cope with frustration. They also treat coping with frustration as a core life skill. Their kids simply have to learn it. The parents would be remiss if they didn't teach it.” ― Pamela Druckerman
“In the United States, a four-year-old American kid isn’t obliged to greet me when he walks into my house. He gets to skulk in under the umbrella of his parents’ greeting. And in an American context, that’s supposed to be fine with me. I don’t need the child’s acknowledgment because I don’t quite count him as a full person; he’s in a separate kids’ realm. I might hear all about how gifted he is, but he never actually speaks to me. When I’m at a family luncheon back in the United States, I’m struck that the cousins and stepcousins at the table, who range in age from five to fourteen, don’t say anything at all to me unless I pry it out of them. Some can only muster one-word responses to my questions. Even the teenagers aren’t used to expressing themselves with confidence to a grown-up they don’t know well. Part of what the French obsession with bonjour reveals is that, in France, kids don’t get to have this shadowy presence. The child greets, therefore he is. Just as any adult who walks into my house has to acknowledge me, any child who walks in must acknowledge me, too. “Greeting is essentially recognizing someone as a person,” says Benoît, the professor. “People feel injured if they’re not greeted by children that way.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“When I tell her about the expression "MILF" ("Mom I'd like to Fuck"), she thinks it's hilarious. There's no French-language equivalent. In France, there's no a priori reason why a woman wouldn't be sexy just because she happens to have children. It's not uncommon to hear a Frenchman say that being a mother gives a woman an appealing air of plentitude (happiness and fulness of spirit).” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“[French] Parents see it as their job to bring the child around to appreciating this [food]. They believe that just as they must teach a child how to sleep, how to wait, and how to say bonjour, they must teach her how to eat.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“But in real life, the ideal Parisian woman is calm, discreet, a bit remote, and extremely decisive.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“The French are much more comfortable with the idea that their affair partner is just that—an affair partner,” writes Pamela Druckerman in her cross-cultural look at infidelity, Lust in Translation. Understanding that love and sex are different things, Druckerman says the French feel less need to “complain about their marriage to legitimize the affair in the first place.” But she found that Americans and British couples seemed to be reading from an entirely different script. “An affair, even a one-night stand, means a marriage is over,” Druckerman observed. “I spoke to women who, on discovering that their husbands had cheated, immediately packed a bag and left, because ‘that’s what you do.’ Not because that’s what they wanted to do—they just thought that was the rule. They didn’t even seem to realize there were other options…. I mean, really, like they’re reading from a script!” ― Christopher Ryan, Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality
“Frenchwomen don’t see pregnancy as a free pass to overeat, in part because they haven’t been denying themselves the foods they love—or secretly binging on those foods—for most of their adult lives. “Too often, American women eat on the sly, and the result is much more guilt than pleasure,” Mireille Guiliano explains in her intelligent book French Women Don’t Get Fat. “Pretending such pleasures don’t exist, or trying to eliminate them from your diet for an extended time, will probably lead to weight gain.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“Soul mate" isn't a pre-existing condition. It's an earned title. They're made over time.” ― Pamela Druckerman
“To grow up without risk is to risk not growing up.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bébé Day by Day: 100 Keys to French Parenting
“Awakening is about introducing a child to sensory experiences, including tastes. It doesn't always require the parent's active involvement. It can come from staring at the sky, smelling dinner as it's being prepared, or playing alone on a blanket. It's a way of sharpening the child's senses and preparing him to distinguish between different experiences. It's the first step toward teaching him to be a cultivated adult who knows how to enjoy himself. Awakening is a kind of training for children in how to profiter - to soak up the pleasure and richness of the moment.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“French parents are very concerned about their kids. They know about pedophiles, allergies, and choking hazards. They take reasonable precautions. But they aren't panicked about their children's well-being. This calmer outlook makes them better at both establishing boundaries and giving their kids some autonomy.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
