French Children Don't Throw Food: The hilarious NO. 1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER changing parents’ lives

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For example, she makes the broad statement that French children sleep through the night at age 2-3 months whereas American children don't even at age 1. I don’t like to generalise and say the French get it right, any more than say there’s an upper-class or working-class way parents parent,” she says.

I was at an English friend's house and her six-year-old son was thumping the piano as we were trying to speak. And she realizes that to be a different kind of parent, you don't just need a different parenting philosophy. Druckerman also downplays the importance of the most vital French parenting wisdom -- year-long state-paid maternity leaves, months of vacation time, free daycare, and free preschool. Many get monthly allowances from the state – sent straight to their bank accounts – just for having kids.On the flip side, perhaps because I'm not an upper-crust, Manhattan parent, I don't personally know any American that parents the way she suggests. Because Druckerman is only looking at the parenting of very young children (and, again, I think a lot of the parenting specific advice she received in France is excellent) we really cannot fairly judge whether the French are wiser parents, because, in the end, it is not about whose baby slept through the night earlier.

This latest attack in the entente discordiale strikes at the heart of parental angst and highlights a fundamental gulf in parenting philosophy between the British and French. If anything, within my community, more parents are like the French parents- perhaps that's because people where I live have more children than average and cannot afford the time or money required to helicopter parent each child the way she described. If it is safe to assume that an American journalist married to a European journalist and living in Paris while writing her book on comparative cultural attitudes toward marital infidelity would lean to the left of the political center then you would not be surprised to find her writing a book that celebrates the parenting styles of the the French while eschewing those of Americans. And what the author describes as the "French" method of parenting is pretty much word for word how I always thought I would be as a parent, particularly when discussing the magic of the word "no.

It can be summed up in the following three rules: you, the parent, are le Chef (the Chief) and your word goes; if there is no blood [when a child falls down], don’t get up, and – most importantly – drink more wine.

French kids eat well-rounded meals that are more likely to include braised leeks than chicken nuggets. While I appreciate the mentioned French notion of fostering autonomy, I don't believe it was an earth shattering new parenting philosophy or approach. If you’re expecting step-by-step guidance on how to bring up your children, you’ll be disappointed, but if you’re looking for themes on how to raise your children so they act appropriately in social situations and how you won’t lose your own identity, then it does deliver. I am so determined not to join that rat race style of parenting — and so this is a book I intend to come back and consult in the years to come. every chapter was just generalization after generalization - All french mothers do this and it works, and all american mothers do this and look how we hover.My one friend with a nanny even expressed doubt about her choice because she feared her kid wouldn't be socialized.