French Parents: Vive La Difference?

[DapperButch]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/debra-...6pLid%3D129900

I came across this article that I thought parents may enjoy and want to discuss. It is about the difference in how we raise children in North Amercia and how we typically give up our own lives to focus on our chilren; we think this is the best, healthiest way to parent for the kids, but this article brings that into question.

I'd love to see some discussion around this.

[tapu]

Maybe I just live in the wrong part of (a U.S.) town, but most of the kids I know are left to raise themselves. I buy toothbrushes in bulk because when Asa has a sleepover, no one ever brings their own. They usually just bring what they're wearing and their own Wii remote. I never hear from the parents.

[Gráinne]

Originally Posted by tapu

Maybe I just live in the wrong part of (a U.S.) town, but most of the kids I know are left to raise themselves. I buy toothbrushes in bulk because when Asa has a sleepover, no one ever brings their own. They usually just bring what they're wearing and their own Wii remote. I never hear from the parents.

This. Most of my kids' friends are left alone for long stretches of time. I have some whose parents-or relatives raising them-are so dysfunctional themselves that the kids have to raise themselves. I see grandparents and even older siblings raising children because the parents are addicts, in prison, or both. I doubt France has the drug addiction rates the U.S. has, even corrected for population. It's off the subject, but I was just reading today that the U.S. has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in developed countries.

Other parents of the kids' friends have little choice but to leave them alone to work two jobs because of economic anxiety. For a country in which parents are almost forced to work instead of staying home with children, we have an abysmal daycare system. Every other country I've been in has at LEAST a six-month leave after having a child, with an allowance. Wow! For all the news lately about European economies, France has a huge safety net for families, unlike America.

All that said, I can have kids in the house and instantly pick out the ones raised in another country-or at least in another style. I have found many American kids to be much more self-centered from parents who do everything for them, expect nothing, and try to be their best friend. Even American parents of a century ago-heck, my own parents-expected me to toe the line and while they were friendly and warm, they were not my friend. I was raised to fit into the family and contribute something from very young, and I think that is one thing we've really gotten away from. I think we do kids a disservice when we (as mothers) swoop down and do everything and fight every battle for them.

All that said again, in America, when mothers do stay home with small kids (and I did), I've never seen so much guilt for little pleasures like a pedi or even a bath. That doesn't seem to happen in France or other countries. I just don't see the burnout and running into the ground in the mothers from any other country, not just France. What I also don't see is the competitiveness, the keeping up with the Jones's. If Mergatroid isn't talking by a year, call in a doctor and therapists! We're so worried about doing everything "wrong".

China was a giant exception. There, the kids were under a huge pressure to pass an exam at some young age to get into the "right" schools. While I've never seen harder workers and studiers, they were not, deep down, very happy. There was an enormous fear of failure, failing themselves and their family.

There has to be a balance between raising children who are really small adults and taking on way too much responsibility, leaving them to their own devices out of necessity or dysfunction, and smothering them into adult kids who don't know how to run the washing machine or even hold a job at 35.

[tapu]

I recognize the article's description of American mothers more from the 80s-early 90s, and from where I was living then, the "OC."

In the 2000s, when I had kids of my own, it was still going on in Boston. I knew mommies who spent every moment staring at their kid and when they put the kid to bed, they watched videos of him.

Economics has definitely done a number on that kind of focus. Unfortunately, for some families it hasn't led to balance, it's led to despair and neglect.

Asa's friends joke about being at Mama's Boot Camp when they're here. Damn right.

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by guihong

All that said, I can have kids in the house and instantly pick out the ones raised in another country-or at least in another style. I have found many American kids to be much more self-centered from parents who do everything for them, expect nothing, and try to be their best friend. Even American parents of a century ago-heck, my own parents-expected me to toe the line and while they were friendly and warm, they were not my friend. I was raised to fit into the family and contribute something from very young, and I think that is one thing we've really gotten away from. I think we do kids a disservice when we (as mothers) swoop down and do everything and fight every battle for them.

All that said again, in America, when mothers do stay home with small kids (and I did), I've never seen so much guilt for little pleasures like a pedi or even a bath. That doesn't seem to happen in France or other countries. I just don't see the burnout and running into the ground in the mothers from any other country, not just France. SNIP

This is what I believe was the point of the article - the type of American parents you are speaking about here.