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As a new book asks why French children don't have tantrums, Kim Willsher, who
has raised her own children in Paris, looks at contrasting views of family life
Kim Willsher in Paris
The Observer, Sunday 1 January 2012
Article history
French mother-of-four Lise Fuccellaro, at home near Paris with two of her
family, said British children are not taught any respect for other people.
Photograph: Ed Alcock/MYOP
First British women came under attack for being chubbier and less chic than
their stylish Gallic sisters. Now another critical salvo has been fired across
the Channel, this time over our ability to bring up well-behaved children.
Forget the euro crisis. 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.
It also taps into the British self-flagellation previously aired in the 2004
dieting tome French Women Don't Get Fat.
In her book French Children Don't Throw Food, out this month, American
mother-of-three Pamela Druckerman, who lives in Paris, asks how the French
manage to raise children who, unlike many of their US or British counterparts,
sleep through the night at two months, are not picky eaters, do not throw
tantrums in the supermarket and go to bed without making a fuss, while their
mothers "continue looking so cool and sexy".
"What British parent hasn't noticed, on visiting France, how well behaved
French children are, compared to our own?" ask her publishers, suggesting that
"with a notebook stashed in her diaper bag", Druckerman discovers the "secrets
to raising a society of good little sleepers, gourmet eaters and reasonably
relaxed parents".
That is a bundle of generalisations and stereotypes, but then few things are
guaranteed to polarise opinions and boost sales as much as how we raise and
educate our offspring.
Discipline versus encouragement, chastisement versus laissez-faire, a sharp
shrill " a suffit!" (that's enough!), versus the mollycoddling "now let's not
do that, shall we?" reasoning of the so-called Anglo-Saxon meaning British or
American mum. And above all, that essential Gallic parenting tool, la fess e,
or smacked bottom, versus the British naughty step.
It is probably safe to assume that Druckerman's copious note-taking among
"Parisian friends and neighbours" centred on a certain section of what would be
described as middle-class families in English or ais in French. Speaking to
mothers who fit that description as opposed to those struggling to raise
families in France's gritty suburbs the Observer discovered a general
consensus that parents either side of the Channel have a radically different
vision of their children and an equally contrasting way of raising them.
In France a child is rarely considered an equal, but a small human being ready
to be formatted, partly by its parents but mostly by the state education
system. It has to be encadr , kept within a clearly and often rigidly defined
framework that places disciplines such as manners and mathematics above
creativity and expression.
A French child who has a tantrum is unlikely to be cut any slack on the grounds
that it is expressing itself, is quite likely to be smacked and, if the
tantrums continue, packed off to see a child psychologist. The "terrible twos"
is not a recognised phenomenon in France.
Lise Fuccellaro, mother of four children aged eight, 12, 14 and 16, lived in
England for seven years before returning to the Paris region.
"What struck me in England was how extremely patient and gentle English mothers
were with their children compared with French parents," she said.
"They would get upset much less often and never seem to have the great shouty
crises we have. But at the table, French children are without doubt much better
behaved. It's remarkable how British children just don't sit nicely and aren't
taught any respect for people around them. It would be unthinkable to most
French parents to inflict their children on other people."
B n dicte Juston, 37, a French languages professor, who lives in west London
with her three boys aged six, eight and 10, agrees: "British parents definitely
have a different approach. They are much less likely to shout 'stop' at their
children and more likely to be calm and ask, 'why did you do that?' We are more
Latin it's a case of 'stop that or you'll get a smack'.
"I often notice I am the only parent shouting at my child in the street."
In France, British expat parents are often dismayed at the stifling rigidity of
French schools, in which learning by rote is more important than learning to
reason, where creativity is strangled by conformity and where what a child has
to say is less important than doing so with impeccable grammar and writing.
Friends in London admire our children's faultless script they learn to use
fountain pens in the first year of primary school but are horrified when told
that the neighbours' six-year-old was declared "nul" useless by his teacher
and marked down, even when giving the correct answer, because their ornate,
loopy, joined-up handwriting was not up to scratch.
"You couldn't do that over here. The parents would be up to the school
complaining about the teacher in a flash," said one British friend.
Juston added: "The biggest difference in bringing up children in France and
Britain are the schools. If, for example, a British child is artistic but not
so good at maths, everyone says never mind, it will come. In France, the
teacher will summon the parents and tell them: your child cannot write and
cannot add up, we don't care about anything else.
"Whether they are happy, have friends or are kind is an added bonus in the way
we educate our children."
Druckerman makes a great deal of how French children are taught to be better
behaved in public and social situations. Passengers on the Eurostar can often
identify a child's nationality without hearing them speak. You can more or less
bet the one running up and down the carriage screaming his head off will not be
French.
B n dicte Lohe-Le Blanc, 38, a teacher originally from Brittany, and her
husband Vincent, 39, live with their three children, Sten, 11, Yaelle, nine,
and Kenan, six, in west London. She believes British parents are lax with their
children.
"I was at an English friend's house and her six-year-old son was thumping the
piano as we were trying to speak. His mother said 'yes that's lovely, but not
so loud'. He just carried on. I said to myself if this was France the child
would have been hauled off to another part of the room and made to stop.
British parental culture is very relaxed, while we terrorise our children."
She is convinced this is a backlash from the laissez-faire attitudes that
prevailed in France after the May 1968 student riots, that brought a form of
the swinging 60s to French society.
"In the wake of May 68 we were more relaxed and we rejected authority. But my
generation saw the damage that lack of limits did to children and how it
ultimately caused them problems, so we went back to being authoritarian."
She added: "We consider our children to be small people, but they are not equal
to an adult. They need authority, they need rules and they need to be kept in
line. A child is a child and has his place. In France we see authority as a
form of affection and believe that a child blossoms because of, not in spite
of, that authority. The bottom line is my child can have his own opinion, but
it's me who decides."
French mothers often have a greater sense of detachment from their children,
says Dr Caroline Thompson, a Paris-based child psychologist and family
therapist who grew up in America until the age of eight and has a British
father. She believes differences in parenting are largely down to the
difference in how the mothers view themselves.
"French women are often loth to leave the arena of womanhood and enter that of
motherhood. They do not define themselves as mothers and don't want to be
defined as such. For American and British women, motherhood has become such a
big event in our lives. It's amazing that women's liberation has brought us to
this extreme that motherhood is the coolest thing to do in your life.
"The place of a child in its mother's mind is much more defined and separate in
France. An Anglo-Saxon mother faced with the piano-thumping child would be
saying 'what is my child feeling?'. A French mother would be asking 'what am I
feeling?'. If we empathise too much with our children that it becomes
intolerable to punish or limit them, this is terrible for the child. If you
believe your main objective is to be liked by your child, you are in big
trouble."
"But we Anglo-Saxon mothers have created a backlash in which smart,
accomplished women give up everything and their child becomes 'the project'.
This in turn puts pressure on the child. Bringing up a child successfully is
about enabling that child to leave you and go out into the world on their own."
Lise Fuccellaro believes British children may be less disciplined than their
French cousins, but says they often grow up to be nicer adults: "French
children may be better brought up in the strictest sense, but they grow up to
be very individualistic," she said.
"British children are more open. They may be noisier and less well behaved, but
they seem to become much more social and community-minded as adults."
THE GALLIC GUIDE TO CHILD REARING
■ Put your child aged from three months to three years into the local state-run
creche for up to 12 hours a day, five days a week, and return to work. It is
cheap (an individual or family with an income of 3,000 a month will pay around
1.80 an hour) and the child will learn to be both independent and sociable.
■ Instruct your child to say "bonjour" every time they meet family and friends.
They should also present their face to give and receive "bises" (pecks on the
cheek) when prompted, even to strangers. The same applies to an "au revoir"
when someone leaves. A child who does not say "bonjour" is considered virtually
a savage.
■ The dining table is sacrosanct. Any hand not in use must be placed flat on
the table. NO shouting. NO getting down from the table without asking.
Absolutely NO throwing food, particularly bread which has a quasi-religious
significance. French children are encouraged to eat a wide variety of food from
an early age at home and at school, where packed lunches are not allowed. Love
of things like garlic, frogs' legs and Camembert must be largely genetic.
■ a suffit! (That's enough!) the single most effective weapon in the French
parent's arsenal. Said loudly and curtly with the emphasis on the ' a'. Usually
follows an 'arr te!' (stop!). Nine times out of 10 it cuts short any arguments,
whining or bad behaviour.
■ "La Fess e" or smacked bottom. On the rare occasions ' a suffit!' fails, and
they are rare, French parents will not hesitate to employ a sharp slap to the
rear or leg. French children become so used to this, they hardly ever cry and
have learned a subtle body swerve to lessen the impact. Particularly strict
grandmothers may prefer to pinch an ear.