Two days after I wrote Monday’s post A Better Way, I saw the following segment on The TodayShow, with the same author, Pamela Druckerman, sharing her experiences living in France. If you live in Richmond, Virginia, you probably heard me that morning clapping and cheering her on. Finally, finally, finally, we have visible evidence of a better way, and not with just one child, but with a majority of the families in France. Please watch!
Young children sitting quietly in restaurants while the family has dinner. Young children eating vegetables. Young children sleeping through the night by two or three months old. And parents of young children who are not frantic, stressed out, or worn out by their children. You can’t tell me that French kids are that different from American kids – not a whole country’s worth! Nope, it is the French parent that is different and the difference is making all the difference for the good of the parents, the children, and for the family.
And the American response is universal. How do they do it? What’s the secret? The secret is bigger than a system or a methodology or a style. The answer is bigger than a book or a doctor. They are drowning in their cultural approach, just like us. What they do differently is assumed, just like us. But unlike us, who seek solutions in a check list or a to do list, the French are comfortable and secure with their role. The answer is not who is good and who is bad, who is doing it right and who is doing it wrong. The answer is not about doing. The answer is about being.
And what struck me most in watching this video segment was that the French seem to intrinsically understand how to transfer responsibility for the child to the child, and at very young ages. For example, they allow their babies to cry for a period of time, giving the child the opportunity to learn to put himself back to sleep. They don’t rush in and “fix it.” They expect a child to behave. They expect a child to be patient. They are insistent that a child say hello and goodbye, instilling in him at a very young age that others are as important as he is. They are the parents, the adults, and they are very comfortable with their authority.
And Americans, for the most part, are not. And what is most ironic is how happy, how secure, how satisfied, and how pleasant the French children appear to be as compared with American children, who are raised in a culture that is consumed with how they feel. In a culture consumed with their schedules, with their education, their activities, with their every move. In a culture that assumes responsibility for the child at every turn, with parents that center their days, and their home and their lives around the children. I am not saying that French children never misbehave, never have bad days, never demand. I am saying that in France, evidently those bad days do not cripple the parents, neither robbing them of their authority nor their comfort in their role.
A counselor told me several years ago, Never do for someone else what he can do for himself. Those were life changing words, and had I learned them sooner than later, I would have saved myself a lot of heartache. And I would have been a better parent. I was very comfortable in my role, but I did too much for my kids and I know that now. We were never meant to carry another’s responsibilities. And whenever we do, even if they are our very young children, we do not help them. We hurt them, we inhibit their innate abilities, we keep them from growing up. Instead of encouraging their adulthood, we ensure their childhood and the consequences of that are children who biologically are adults, but mentally and emotionally are still children. And saddest of all, we rob ourselves of all the joy along the way, and we are left with fatigue and a weariness of body and spirit.
If you watched that video above, or if you have read any of Pamela Druckerman’s story, I think you will have to agree that the picture of children sitting quietly in a restaurant, with their parents, everyone apparently enjoying themselves, is a good picture. An enviable picture. It is also an achievable picture. Consider life differently. Vive la France!
I write frequently and furiously about the American parenting culture. I feel anxious every time I watch a family give in to the whims of their children. I feel sad every time I hear a parent say that he “is glad it’s Monday and he is back at work.” I just kills me the way American parents say that being a parent is the hardest job they have ever had, and treat it as if it is something to be endured, rather than enjoyed. I am disheartened when after all of the over-parenting, over-providing and over-protecting, I see young people on the cusp of their lives shut down, unable to cope with the demands of adult life. Clearly the cultural paradigm isn’t working, and yet parents continue to pursue it with ever increasing determination.
I always want to cry out, It does not have to be this way. The difficulty isn’t the children. The difficulty isn’t the magnitude of the role. The difficulty isn’t even the culture. The difficulty rests in the minds of the parents. The difficulty is that the children don’t need to change (though they do), and the magnitude of the role is not going to change, or that the culture needs to change (though it does), the difficulty is that the parents need to change. They need to change their minds, and then their actions. And even when we know that the end result will be better, the natural human instinct is to resist change.
I am going to close today with the words of Pamela Druckerman, printed in a recent edition of the Wall Street Journal. Although it is a bit long, I so hope you will read it. Then read it again. Read it as many times as you need to, if it will give you the courage to change your minds and approach. Because if you do, it will change your life, and for the better.
When my daughter was 18 months old, my husband and I decided to take her on a little summer holiday. We picked a coastal town that’s a few hours by train from Paris, where we were living (I’m American, he’s British), and booked a hotel room with a crib. Bean, as we call her, was our only child at this point, so forgive us for thinking: How hard could it be?
We ate breakfast at the hotel, but we had to eat lunch and dinner at the little seafood restaurants around the old port. We quickly discovered that having two restaurant meals a day with a toddler deserved to be its own circle of hell.
Bean would take a brief interest in the food, but within a few minutes she was spilling salt shakers and tearing apart sugar packets. Then she demanded to be sprung from her high chair so she could dash around the restaurant and bolt dangerously toward the docks.
Our strategy was to finish the meal quickly. We ordered while being seated, then begged the server to rush out some bread and bring us our appetizers and main courses at the same time. While my husband took a few bites of fish, I made sure that Bean didn’t get kicked by a waiter or lost at sea. Then we switched. We left enormous, apologetic tips to compensate for the arc of torn napkins and calamari around our table.
A recent news report/survey stated that 96% of today’s moms feel that they are more stressed than their mothers had been. I think that is pretty accurate. And unfortunate. Do you ever stop and wonder how is it that we live in the information age, with advanced technology, instant communication and improved and enhanced merchandise to make life and mothering as easy as possible, and yet stress levels are higher? Maybe the advancements and the improvements and the “stuff” haven’t really advanced and improved our lives. Maybe all the demands and pressures and “keeping up” are proving more trouble than they are ultimately worth. The moms before us made do with much less, and apparently lived remarkably better. How has that happened?
We are such an intense culture. We take ourselves and our children very, very, seriously. Perhaps too seriously. Perhaps the focus on children and their safety and their success and their happiness and their entertainment is just a little lopsided. Perhaps expecting perfection out of them and ourselves is proving to be unbearable. Perhaps taking responsibility for ourselves and our children and their performance and mistakes and victories and defeats is sending us a little over the top. Perhaps we have bitten off more than we can chew. Perhaps we have bitten off more than anyone can chew. More than anyone was ever meant to chew.
So let’s take a look backwards and examine why it is that our moms were not as worn out, stressed out, and burned out as us. Wouldn’t it feel good to do less? Wouldn’t it be lovely not to feel like you are the one responsible for solving all problems and making everything alright? Wouldn’t it feel liberating if your child’s mistakes were not immediately assumed to be your mistakes? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the answer Because I said so was sufficient? Wouldn’t you just love not to feel like you were in a race, where the first mom to get her child to read, write, excel, and go to college was the only winner? Wouldn’t it be lovely to win by just being average?
Before 1960, that’s what motherhood was like. In the 60’s, everything changed and for the mother, not for the better. In the 60’s the focus on child rearing switched from the parent to the child. In the 60’s a child’s self-esteem and feelings took priority over his behavior. In the 60’s we became far more concerned about why a child misbehaved than the behavior itself. In the 60’s psychological answers and explanations absolved children of responsibility, creating victims rather than offenders. And in the 60’s, when the rightful equality and roles of women began to rise, the leadership and authority of the woman in the home was undercut. So today women are stressed out because we have become leaders and managers in the work place, but in the home we are reduced to servants, controlled and manipulated by the culture and our kids.
But I promise, it should not be this way. You deserve better than that. Husbands and fathers deserve better than that. And your children deserve better than that. You deserve respect and your children desperately need to respect you. Because I said so is a fine answer, and it does not harm the psyche of your child. Quite the opposite. It reassures your child. It confirms for him that you are capable of leading him, of caring for him, of providing for him. Your confidence makes him confident. Your security in your role makes your child secure. And your refusal to assume responsibility for his behavior, his mistakes, and his choices forces your child to take responsibility for himself. And that is what growing up is all about. And childhood is the time to do it, when the mistakes and recovery are small, and the consequences not so far reaching.
In our cultural drive to protect and control and prevent suffering of any kind on the part of our children, we are ironically creating the odds of increased suffering for them as adults. As we manage their every step, supervise their every move, instruct their every moment, and assume responsibility for their performance on almost every front, we are robbing them of experiencing life lessons that should be learned in childhood. And so a whole generation of kids is coming out of college, very well educated, but very poorly prepared to face life. Sadly most of them still have yet to learn the disciplines and experience the struggles meant for childhood. Only now the lessons are much harder and the struggles are much more overwhelming.
And so 96% of moms say that they are more stressed out than their mothers were. How can they not be? And I bet a good percentage of twenty somethings get up and “tweet” to the world what they had for breakfast. Because they are certain that someone will want to know. But what their words scream loud and clear is my world is really small and I am the center of it. How can it not be? But I don’t think it’s what we really want. I think what we want is what we lost. I think we’d like to take a few ques from our mothers. Because it can be different. I dare you, mom. Reclaim your authority in your home. Lead, don’t serve. You deserve more.
