Breaking news: French children are naughty too!
This will be a short post. I just came here to say: I have spent a week hanging out in Parisian playgrounds with my 2 and 4-year-old children, visiting the homes of our French friends who have small children, and discussing life as a parent with my French sister-in-law who has 3 children, and I have come to the conclusion that…French children are children too!
French children have tantrums. French children do not always listen to their parents. French children refuse to wear their shoes. French children do not sit quietly at the dinner table. French children scream in quiet places. French children throw sand in the eyes of other children at the playground. French children run wild in the grocery store even when their mother tells them not to. French children refuse to walk and must be carried. French children refuse to eat their vegetables and then ask for ice cream. French children do not pick up their toys. French children do not like to share their toys. French children jump in muddy puddles wearing their nice, clean clothes. French children climb up the slide even though another child is waiting at the top to go down. French children say naughty words in public. French children bite. French children hit. French children pee in their pants. French children refuse to go to sleep at night.
Maybe some of you here have read the book Bringing Up Bebe. If you haven’t, it’s a best-selling book written by an American mother living in Paris, designed to teach us ignorant Americans how to parent like the French. The basic premise is that French parenting is better and, as a result, French children sleep through the night starting at 3 months, sit quietly at the dinner table through a four-course meal, and generally obey their parents’ rules. I am here to tell you: not so! Unfortunately, saying that children in France are naughty and sleepless just like their American counterparts is not a great way to sell books.
In case you are laboring under the erroneous notion that your children’s naughty behavior is the result of your poor parenting, rest assured: children everywhere are naughty. Despite what the parenting books would have you believe, there is no foolproof strategy for eliminating children’s naughtiness. When will we all just learn to accept children as children?
do you mean to tell me that I do not need to buy "Bringing up Bebe" or spend $200 on a toddler-behavior parenting course which is essentially a poorly edited book, in PDF format? (At least give me an edited physical copy for all that dough!)
Love this!