Bringing Up Bébé

This book made it pretty clear that I would make a good French mother and a terrible American mom. For those who have not heard this book reviewed to death, it relays the experiences of one American journalist and new mother navigating the world of French parenting. Druckerman covers the period from birth to kindergarten and explores cultural differences between American and French parenting in terms of sleeping, eating, discipline, and education. I think one of the failings of Druckerman's book is that she has little firsthand knowledge of life as an American mom. Druckerman relies on correspondence with friends and brief personal observations, mostly in New York City, to compare the the different cultural parenting techniques. As everyone else has observed ad infinitum, French parents have plenty of advantages unavailable in the States, all of which make having children as well as a work-life balance a lot easier. Nevertheless, speaking as a non-parent and someone who feels that children should not take over one's life, most of Druckerman's “French” parenting advice sounds like common sense to me.