Laissez-faire parenting

Posted Feb 23, 2012 By Brynna Leslie

If we could all be a little more like parents in France, our infants would sleep through the night, our children would eat their vegetables, and we'd all be having great post-natal sex with our spouses. These are just some of the conclusions found in a new book, Bringing up Bebe: One American mother discovers the wisdom of French parenting.

Author Pamela Druckerman is an American journalist living in Paris with her husband and three young children. After spending years observing French parenting culture through an expatriate lens, she has documented some of their laissez-faire parenting customs from which, she says, we can all benefit. Druckerman contrasts the child-centric American style of parenting with the more relaxed philosophy of the French, who seem to fit children into their lives, rather than the other way around.

She says a lot of it starts in-utero. While North Americans preach abstinence of alcohol, caffeine, and warn against "the most minute risks, like getting a manicure," Druckerman says the French are much less obsessive over whether a little bit of unpasteurized cheese will hurt the baby. "The attitude isn't that every bite of food you take is going to determine whether your child is accepted to Harvard Law School," Druckerman told Macleans magazine.

There are some great takeaways from the book. I am a huge advocate of what Druckerman describes as "the Pause," a sleep-training method used by French parents on babies as young as a few weeks old. Rather than jumping at baby's every cry in the night, French parents wait a minute or two to see if the baby will connect its two-hour sleep cycles together on its own. Druckerman says many French babies sleep through the night by two or three-months-old. (In hindsight, sheer exhaustion -the inability to respond to baby immediately in the wee hours of the morning -helped me to employ this method inadvertently on my own two children, who slept through the night at three and four-months-old, to the envy of my neighbours and friends).

Druckerman also notes children in France are expected to eat the same food as adults, and they are not allowed to snack between meals. Druckerman points out that, as a result, French kids are more likely than their American counterparts to eat their vegetables at meal times because they're actually hungry.

Admittedly, I already practice some of the apparent French methods Druckerman describes. I could be accused, however, of being overly interventionist (and typically North American) when it comes to my children's intellectual stimulation. While French parents are more likely to sit on the periphery of a playground, for example, and socialize with other adults as their children play on slides and climbers, Druckerman says moms like me tend to be "wheeing" and " awing" at every move my child makes. I've become a bit more relaxed as my children get older, but it's worth noting that, as a result of their less interventionist behaviour, French parents are able to expect less interruptive behaviour from their children.

And finally, there's the sex. It may be a bit controversial here, but French women feel no obligation to breastfeed beyond a few months, unless they enjoy it, says Druckerman. Many partake in state-sponsored post-natal classes, which help women tighten up pelvic muscles after childbirth.

It's unusual for women to stay home full-time with children. Druckerman says three months seems to be the "magic number," by which point most women are expected to get their pre-natal identities back, including returning to work and fitting into their skinny jeans. That, alone, is enough to make me want to shout, "vive le France."