You can imagine that it did not take long for this Wall Street Journal Article to pop up on my facebook timeline: Why French parents are superior by Pamela Druckerman. As you might know, I can’t really deny my French roots with a name like mine. I read through the article carefully, I was sometimes a little bit irritated and sometimes flattered by what the author was saying about French, but it does not mean that the author was revealing the truth about French parenting. First, the title of the article made me click, but I found it provocative (that is certainly why I clicked to read it). Why did the author choose the word superior? Immediately, in my mind, it made me think to this cliche that the French are arrogant and always feel superior… Ok, let’s keep this debate for another time, let’s move on to the core of the article.

T-shirt from the french online shop: Presque Parfait

Pamela Druckerman, starts with a description of her vacation with her toddler where she and her family had to have lunch and dinner at the restaurant twice a day. She explained and described how it was a nightmare for her. When reading the introduction of the article, I could see ourselves with our son when he was 9 month old, when we tried to escape the city for a long week end. We came back in Singapore with the conclusion that we ll have to wait more before trying such trip again with very young children. On the contrary, it is true that I could give you some examples of parents that went on vacation for months (lucky them) with their one year old toddler and apparently their trip looks like a description of French parenting…

Living away from France, the most surprising for us about education is to analyse how babies are educated with almost the same rules across families in France. Media, books, hospital, GP, fashion give strict rules that are followed by almost all parents as if they had no choice. It is the way it needs to be done. For many rules, first thing that French like to do is to find a way to stop following them, for parenting they merely follow without questioning. Baby needs to go in bed at 8 am, he will go. Sleeping with baby is not recommended, he won’t sleep in parent bed. 6 months is the start of solid food, here we start. After some years in Singapore, we can see that there are many ways to raise a child, and none of them are good or better than others. Babies who sleep with their parents seems to be healthy, polite, and happy. Babies that starts porridge at 4 month old have not prematurely died. For example, for school, here in Singapore, you have many choices, public schools, international schools, daycare, nursery, pre nursery. Our son is not 3 years old and goes to school. First reactions of our French friends are: Is he not too young to go to school? Why did he start in February, in the middle of the year? All children starts pre-school at the age of three in France, beginning of September. Pre school is subsidized by government. You don’t have even to think if it is better for your child to stay home with you. Budget is not even a parameter to take into account as pre school is the natural and cheapest option. I would not daresay that it is easier to be a parent in France, I just would say that the education is organized that they are more guided without feeling any dictatorship (provocative word I know…).

Does it make French parenting superior? No. Different? Maybe. How education is organized in France by a significant amount of subsidy and social guidance of dos and don’ts just make them feeling less guilty about the decision they make everyday. And I agree with the author about French parents for who the world did not stop turning when they decided to have kids. They love their kids but they love themselves to

Source: The photography is a tee-shirt saying I cry therefore I am, derived from the famous Descartes’ quotation: I think therefore I am. You can find other t-shirts on the nonetheless famous french online shop: Presque Parfait