The French know how to raise children...
Or I'd like kids more if I lived in France.
Before moving to Paris, American Pamela Druckerman knew that the French had a reputation for cultural refinement: a knowledge of wine, a sophisticated sense of style and a preoccupation with haute cuisine.
But while living in the French capital and going through the everyday struggles of raising children her English husband, she uncovered another surprising aspect of French life. Wherever she looked in Paris, the locals seemed to be employing a certain je ne sais quoi that was making their kids behave better than typical American children.
Druckerman decided to write a book about her experience, called Bringing up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting. She tells Weekend Edition's Rachel Martin that the idea for the book came to her in a sort of "epiphany" when she was eating out with her husband and her daughter, who was 18 months old at the time.
http://www.npr.org/2012/02/12/146769135/move-over-tiger-mother-french-parents-may-be-better-too
Before moving to Paris, American Pamela Druckerman knew that the French had a reputation for cultural refinement: a knowledge of wine, a sophisticated sense of style and a preoccupation with haute cuisine.
But while living in the French capital and going through the everyday struggles of raising children her English husband, she uncovered another surprising aspect of French life. Wherever she looked in Paris, the locals seemed to be employing a certain je ne sais quoi that was making their kids behave better than typical American children.
Druckerman decided to write a book about her experience, called Bringing up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting. She tells Weekend Edition's Rachel Martin that the idea for the book came to her in a sort of "epiphany" when she was eating out with her husband and her daughter, who was 18 months old at the time.
http://www.npr.org/2012/02/12/146769135/move-over-tiger-mother-french-parents-may-be-better-too