Bringing Up Bébé

I was pretty skeptical about this book, since it seemed to reek of two things I find generally disturbing: a “parenting philosophy” and Francophilia. So it took me a while to get to this. But I'm glad I did! It was a hugely calming, sanity-inducing look at parenting small children. It's a lovely antidote and inoculation against some of the “cult of total motherhood” insanities around how children are meant to radically transform your identity, your life, and your freedom - an idea that seems increasingly fashionable these days on (mostly/entirely Anglo?) blogs, forums, baby tracking apps, etc. An idea that made me wonder why anyone in their right mind would choose to have kids?!

Jennifer's review hits the nail on the head. This book is basically a “traditionalist” view of babies and small children. The parents are in charge, kids mold to parents' lives (not vice versa), and - as one European relative told me - “we would put the baby in its own room, close the door to his room and to our room, and only return when his screams were loud enough to be heard in our room”. This basically goes against the grain of Dr. Sears-style “attachment parenting”, and indeed, if you believe in the higher powers of baby-wearing, exclusive breastfeeding, co-sleeping, etc., then you will probably be annoyed by this book - much shade is thrown.

One good (and common) critique of this book is that it's not that French parenting wisdom is superior to American parenting wisdom, it's that French institutions - paid maternity leave, free childcare, subsidized everything - are superior to American institutions. Yeah. Duh. The American state (or rather, the Republican Party) doesn't seem to believe that women have anything to offer beyond their uteruses and boobs, and there is an enormous institutional apparatus making it hard and miserable to be a parent and a worker while female. So you have working women having to cobble together maternity leave using sick leave and vacation days, pumping breast milk in supply closets. I mean, it's bonkers.

But it's also true that American parenting - especially American motherhood - seems to be consumed by ideological warfare (boob or formula? unmedicated birth or epidural?!), incredibly loaded with judgement and pseudo-science, in a way that other countries are not. And I do think this is a reaction to the messed up institutions. I mean, there's an entire industry of “how to get your baby to sleep X hours by Y age” - and an entire morbid cultural meme around how horrific newborn sleep patterns are - and I really think the only reason everyone is so darkly obsessed with BABY NIGHTTIME SLEEP OH GLOB is because at least one, but often both, parents need to be back to working at the office ASAP.

Another big motivator behind American's obsessive, all-consuming hyperparenting culture is not just the crappy institutions, but also the crappy income inequality. See this interesting WaPo article. I think it's in that article, but there's a stat somewhere about how working moms now spend as much time - per week - on childcare as STAY AT HOME moms did in the 70s.

Anyway, this book is nice. It's inspiring, despite these structural nonsenses. I mean, you don't HAVE to buy into the parenting rat race, even if the institutions and culture are pushing it. I especially liked the “French parenting wisdom” of treating your children NOT as tiny fragile avatars or tiny projects to perfect, but as individuals possessing of (some modicum of) rationality and resilience.

O YA and the book includes a couple recipes! Delightful. Apparently weekend baking is a big “parental wisdom” thing French parents do with their children starting at some early age (2 years old!? I dunno). Who doesn't like cake? Druckerman includes a recipe for a yogurt cake that is apparently the go-to starter cake for these tiny pastry chefs.