Why French Parents are Superior

[Ele]

Blame it on the Freedom Fries.

Wow. That's current.

So is the fat ass you started growing last decade.

[FBM]

[Bella Fortuna]

[hadespussercats]

Blame it on the Freedom Fries.

Wow. That's current.

So is the fat ass you started growing last decade.

It is. Thanks for noticing.

[hadespussercats]

Listen, French women don't seem to get fat in the vast numbers that American women do. But neither do Chinese women. Or Somalian women.

Or rich American women, for that matter.

The titles in question were written to be provocative, as you pointed out, Mai. There is in fact a meme amongst Americans that the French are superior-- this is the drive behind the "Le Car," or any number of French-sounding brand names to give a product cachet.

And while I don't argue that there are obnoxious American children, or that many French children may have pleasant manners, I'd rather hear about the practices that underlie such outcomes, rather than having to swallow some line about how French parents are better than me. Provocative title is provoking-- I'd say "as designed," except it makes me averse to spending a dime to read it.

And, if anecdotal evidence like, "all the French children I've met were charming" (paraphrase) is acceptable, then I have to point out that most of the French people I've met really do think they're superior to Americans. Even the ones who'd rather not identify as such.

[Bella Fortuna]

Listen, French women don't seem to get fat in the vast numbers that American women do. But neither do Chinese women. Or Somalian women.

Or rich American women, for that matter.

The titles in question were written to be provocative, as you pointed out, Mai. There is in fact a meme amongst Americans that the French are superior-- this is the drive behind the "Le Car," or any number of French-sounding brand names to give a product cachet.

And while I don't argue that there are obnoxious American children, or that many French children may have pleasant manners, I'd rather hear about the practices that underlie such outcomes, rather than having to swallow some line about how French parents are better than me. Provocative title is provoking-- I'd say "as designed," except it makes me averse to spending a dime to read it.

And, if anecdotal evidence like, "all the French children I've met were charming" (paraphrase) is acceptable, then I have to point out that most of the French people I've met really do think they're superior to Americans. Even the ones who'd rather not identify as such.

BINGO!

[Audley Strange]

Does that mean French Chinese Lesbians raising a child will develop the Overman?

[hadespussercats]

Does that mean French Chinese Lesbians raising a child will develop the Overman?

Maybe they already have !

[kiki5711]

It's as FBM said. Cultural. Has nothing to do with the mothers or fathers being better.

It is the same in Croatia and as far as I know in many countries as well. Not just France.

[Warren Dew]

Korean kids don't run Korean households, either.

After my wife and I had been going to our favorite Chinese restaurant for a few years, we noticed one day that there was an obnoxiously crying kid disturbing many of the patrons. We were kind of annoyed at their parents bringing the kid into the restaurant at all - until we looked around and noticed that there were two other families in the restaurant with kids of similar age, whom we hadn't noticed because they were staying quiet and well behaved.

The noisy kid was western. The quiet kids were Asian. We then started looking more carefully each time we visited the restaurant and noticed a continuing strong correlation between the kids of parents who looked Chinese and the kids who were better behaved. It wasn't genetic, because kids who were clearly adopted from China by western parents acted like the western kids.

Watching the parental behavior, we noticed that the Chinese parents were constantly paying attention to their kids, and the American parents were ignorint their kids. We concluded that kids who get enough attention are less likely to misbehave in public.

What's interesting about the claim about French parents is that it's exactly the opposite of what we observed - the claim is that American parents cause their kids to misbehave by paying too much attention to the kids, while the French know to ignore them. Apparently, Dragon moms and French moms both do well with diametrically opposing parenting strategies, while American moms can't succeed with either.

To be honest, I'm a bit skeptical about the claims about the French parents as I haven't seen them in action. However, if true, the only way I see to reconcile the claims with the data about Chinese parents is to conclude that it isn't the parenting style, but rather something else, that affects the children's behavior.

[Warren Dew]

Strange they grow up to be so damn unpleasant!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... Id=3703928 (not sure whether this works without a subscription)

I kid. But I do get tired of this meme. French women don't get fat, either.

And it's all because they're French.

It's because their diet consists of pate and caviar.

Listen, French women don't seem to get fat in the vast numbers that American women do. But neither do Chinese women.

Clearly, the way to have well behaved children is to stay thin!

Or Somalian women. Or rich American women, for that matter.

... whether it's from starvation or from liposuction.

Seriously, I do suspect diet has something to do with it. In my experience, American children are more difficult to control when they are on a sugar high, immediately after consuming carbohydrate heavy food with no fat to slow absorption. I doubt that's the whole story, but with the children more frequently difficult to control, the parents may give up on controlling them.

[hadespussercats]

Strange they grow up to be so damn unpleasant!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... Id=3703928 (not sure whether this works without a subscription)

I kid. But I do get tired of this meme. French women don't get fat, either.

And it's all because they're French.

It's because their diet consists of pate and caviar.

Listen, French women don't seem to get fat in the vast numbers that American women do. But neither do Chinese women.

Clearly, the way to have well behaved children is to stay thin!

Or Somalian women. Or rich American women, for that matter.

... whether it's from starvation or from liposuction.

Seriously, I do suspect diet has something to do with it. In my experience, American children are more difficult to control when they are on a sugar high, immediately after consuming carbohydrate heavy food with no fat to slow absorption. I doubt that's the whole story, but with the children more frequently difficult to control, the parents may give up on controlling them.

To the above stuff.

To the last comment-- I've heard a lot about how different types of foods influence behavior-- from wheat sensitivities playing into ADD, to artificial sweeteners causing hyper behavior, never mind additives, sugar and HFCS...

It does make a difference.

I think behavior/cultural practices play a role, as well.

Re Korean families-- I'm curious. My husband used to work for a Korean designer who came from a wealthy family. Her father pressured her to leave the States after college and marry a Korean man from their circle. The marriage ended poorly, and she came back to the US with her son. He was about nine or ten when I knew him, and, as J just exclaimed when I mentioned him, "What a punk." Possibly the most spoiled, entitled kid I've ever met.

Some of J's co-workers were also Korean, and mentioned that first sons there get treated like royalty. (A lot like the American parenting being criticized in the book.)

FBM (or anyone)-- how does this play into your experience? Is he an outlier after all? Is it because his family is wealthy?

[FBM]

First sons (not daughters) do often get spoiled rotten in Korea, yes, because they're expected to be head of household once the parents get too old to care for themselves. Even though the son gets married and moves away, he'll (traditionally, anyway) be responsible for the parents' welfare. A double whammy on the kid you mentioned is that he's also from a rich family, and wealth implies privelege over here. To make it worse, his parents divorced, which must have had some ill effects on his childhood development, I'd think.

Anyway, that kid isn't typical of Korean children.

@Warren: China and Korea are two very, very different cultures, despite their superficial similarities. Most Chinese couples are allowed to have only one child, so they tend to spoil the one they have. In Korea, children seem to be attended to as much as required, but not doted on. (I'm talking about middle-class families, not either extreme.) Kids are expected to find ways to amuse themselves that don't annoy adults, whether parents or strangers, and until recently, that didn't require expensive and constant electronic stimulation. They are coddled and showered with attention when they are very young, but about the time they get to be toddlers, the parents start weaning them off that until the kid is able to be alone without being a problem to others.

In my experience, the mother is at least 80% of the parenting. I haven't seen much corporal punishment in very young children, and the concept of a time out doesn't seem to be part of their way of dealing with problem behavior. Instead, the mother's emotional bond is very strong, and the kids seem to respond to the mother's expression of disapproval or disappointment. And they aren't helicopter moms, and they don't make kids wear helmets and body armor on the playground. When a kid falls and gets a scrape, the mother will check the scrape to make sure it's not serious, but will not smother the kid in consolation. A quick check, a quick kiss and then it's, 'OK, go back and play now.'

One very interesting thing I've noticed. Korean kids are quick to cry, but just as quick to stop and return to normal. No prolonged pouting or sulking, no clinging to grudges or blaming.

Just to clarify: I've been living in Korea almost non-stop since 1996. I've spent a lot of time in Korean homes and in public places with Koreans. I've been interested in understanding the differences in the way Koreans (and Asians in general) think and see the world as compared to the Western worldview(s), so I've tried to pay particular attention to the way kids are raised. That's not to say I'm an expert, however.

[Warren Dew]

@Warren: China and Korea are two very, very different cultures, despite their superficial similarities. Most Chinese couples are allowed to have only one child, so they tend to spoil the one they have. In Korea, children seem to be attended to as much as required, but not doted on. (I'm talking about middle-class families, not either extreme.)

China's current culture may be quite different from traditional Chinese culture. The families I observed were likely expatriates originally from Taiwan or Hong Kong - or from the mainland before Communism - so they wouldn't have been affected by the one child rule. The mothers were giving the children attention as their first priority, but that doesn't mean giving the children everything they wanted.

I didn't have the opportunity to see what happened in their homes. I did have the opportunity to have a "dragon mother" myself, and I don't think I was spoiled, but I don't remember ever lacking parental attention when I wanted it, either. If anything, I got more parental attention than I wanted, sometimes.

[hadespussercats]

It's funny-- I remember my mom's bewilderment when her friends' kids started having kids, how they interacted.

She remarked, "I never played with you girls." And it's true. She did stuff with us-- cooking, shopping, walks, chores together-- but playing was something we did with other kids or by ourselves. And as long as we could hear her calling (when we were little) we could pretty much go where we wanted.

It's pretty different these days.

But I see a lot of parents now plying down bumps and scrapes: " You're okay. Go and play." Which is probably good.

We'll see how I handle it when mah baby! gets scraped up, though...