It was Father’s Day this weekend, so it’s a good time for me to share some patronizing parenting advice. It’s called “Le Pause.”
My friend Dietlind recommended a parenting book called “Bringing up Bebe“. And now I am an expert in parenting like the French. The book is by Pamela Druckerman, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who moved to Paris. Dietlind actually met her there and recommended her “creche”, a government-funded playgroup. Which is how the topic came up. (The creche recommendation features in the book. The creche serves the children blue cheese once a week. For me, this is “incroyable.”)
Meanwhile, our son Freddy is a New Yorker. A little emperor. That means he eats French Fries in restaurants and his parents tend to act like he’s a time bomb when we’re given a menu. He gets to do whatever he wants, really. “N’importe quoi,” as they say in France. Meanwhile in France, kids sit for three course meals with complete patience, so I’m told. So, what’s up with that? And how can we replicate it in the land of Freedom Fries?
Well, it all stems from a French attitude to letting a child discover the world. If they’re upset, you have to give them some time to discover how to calm themselves. That’s called “le pause.” Le pause, it turns out, means more than that. You also give children space to discover other things. Not only food. Their personalities. The right way and wrong way of living in the world. So, you’re intentional about feeding them a variety of foods. It stems from a belief that a child has potential and ability to broaden their palate.
Americans are over-anxious type-A parents. New Yorkers, in particular, jump in whenever a child cries. We offer whatever it might take to calm the kid down. The French believe the child can calm themselves down. That there’s a little gourmand in there waiting to get out. That the child has agency.
I rather like it. It feels a bit more relaxing to do in practice, too. I can see why the French think American children are impossible. If they’re not given any “cadre”, or frame of rules and what’s okay and what isn’t, they lack assurance,the theory goes.
Another part of the book I’ve enjoyed is learning how to say “non.” You have to say it with conviction, as if you were happy to say it six more times without yielding. Children, it turns out, are able to hear if you don’t mean it when you say no. So they ignore you. But if you say “non” like a french parent, they get it on the first or second go. If you also do “les grand yeux”, the “big eyes”, they get it even faster. So I’ve been working on saying no and meaning it. It even half works.
I am now bringing up this bit of parenting advice at every opportunity. I am boring myself with it, let alone other people. But it did come up in the playground yesterday with another mother. Amy told me she’s having a hard time getting her child to listen to her because her voice is too high. “He listens to men,” she said. I said, “non.” It’s not about the kid being sexist. “You have to really mean it,” I said. And then we talked about “les grand yeux” and she is going to try it.
The book came out in 2012, but it’s still pretty good. I like the writing. It’s clean and to-the-point. You can watch a video of the author chatting with the Wall Street Journal here if you’re interested. Thanks for the recommendation, Dietlind! (*You can watch us talking about the history of strategic communication here too.)
