Two days after I wrote Monday’s post A Better Way, I saw the following segment on The Today Show, 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!
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/46293805#46293805
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!
