Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
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Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Pamela Druckerman (Author), Abby Craden (Narrator), Random House Audio (Publisher)
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 6,752 ratings
Editors' pick Best Biographies & Memoirs
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The secret behind France's astonishingly well-behaved children is here.

When American journalist Pamela Druckerman has a baby in Paris, she doesn't aspire to become a "French parent". French parenting isn't a known thing, like French fashion or French cheese. Even French parents themselves insist they aren't doing anything special.

Yet the French children Druckerman knows sleep through the night at two or three months old while those of her American friends take a year or more. French kids eat well-rounded meals that are more likely to include braised leeks than chicken nuggets. And while her American friends spend their visits resolving spats between their kids, her French friends sip coffee while the kids play.

Motherhood itself is a whole different experience in France. There's no role model, as there is in America, for the harried new mom with no life of her own. French mothers assume that even good parents aren't at the constant service of their children and that there's no need to feel guilty about this. They have an easy, calm authority with their kids that Druckerman can only envy.

Of course, French parenting wouldn't be worth talking about if it produced robotic, joyless children. In fact, French kids are just as boisterous, curious, and creative as Americans. They're just far better behaved and more in command of themselves. While some American toddlers are getting Mandarin tutors and preliteracy training, French kids are - by design - toddling around and discovering the world at their own pace.

With a notebook stashed in her diaper bag, Druckerman, a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, sets out to learn the secrets to raising a society of good little sleepers, gourmet eaters, and reasonably relaxed parents. She discovers that French parents are extremely strict about some things and strikingly permissive about others. And she realizes that to be a different kind of parent, you don't just need a different parenting philosophy. You need a very different view of what a child actually is.

While finding her own firm non, Druckerman discovers that children - including her own - are capable of feats she'd never imagined.

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  1. Listening Length
    9 hours and 8 minutes
  2. Author
    Pamela Druckerman
  3. Narrator
    Abby Craden
  4. Audible release date
    February 7, 2012
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Random House Audio
  7. ASIN
    B0076G200O
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 9 hours and 8 minutes
Author Pamela Druckerman
Narrator Abby Craden
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date February 07, 2012
Publisher Random House Audio
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B0076G200O
Best Sellers Rank #2,287 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#4 in Motherhood (Audible Books & Originals)
#36 in Motherhood (Books)
#65 in Parenting (Books)

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
6,752 global ratings
A Must Read for Parents
5 Stars
A Must Read for Parents
It didn’t come with all the scuffs. Those are from being a mom. I couldn’t put this book down! It touches most topics moms struggle with and makes some excellent points. (Things you think would be common sense.) Druckerman writes in a way that is accessible and relatable to every mom.Parents! This is a must read.As for the physical book it’s self, it shipped and arrived quickly and was in excellent condition.
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Top reviews from the United States

Treenz
5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh, tried and true methods for parents finally written down - not just french culture necessarily. Highly recommend
Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2016
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After reading and thoroughly enjoying Karen Le Billion's 'French Kids Eat Everything' purely catching my attention from Amazon reviews, I decided to read the other one along same lines also highly reviewed. I wasn't sure if I was getting much of the same thing but I was pleasantly surprised to discover this was quite different and for me, the two go very well hand in hand. Each author's experience of French culture, while obviously things in common as it's the same culture, it was still very different and very interesting. I could not put this book down! I felt like I was feeding off every word - it all just makes so much sense to me! I guess in a lot of it I saw also things I experienced as a child in New Zealand in how we were raised which had quite a lot of similarities, so for me this book and Le Billion's reminded me of systems that really do work!

These days mothers and fathers, often older - like myself, and having long forgotten the ways I was raised, you just feel like you have to figure it out for yourself. I read all the usual books every parent reads but after reading these two books, I wish these were the only two I had read. These practices are not someone's new theory, or some trendy idea, they are tried and true and still in practice by many around the world (this isn't just French - the book's are about french culture but like I mentioned above, my culture as a New Zealander had a lot of this). That is what gets me, it works. For generations it has worked on any and every child and produces strong, secure, happy children - isn't that what we all want? It's not about rules as much as it's about providing good boundaries that your children can flourish under.

This book was written more as a personal almost journal, telling the story of how Pamela and her husband got to be living in France as well as sharing about their relationship and other personable experiences along the way. It is well written and very easy to read.

Here's some of my take-away notes from this book:

- Evenings are for parents - it's adult time. If the children are still awake and around then they understand this. Important for parents to have time to talk together uninterrupted by children.Adult time is a basic human need and kids must understand parents have their own pleasures.

- From birth, don't jump every time baby makes a noise, give them a chance to self soothe - this is key because if they learn it young they will sleep through the night faster. (We're not talking cry it out method here - sometimes babies make little noises as they stir and the parents fly in and pick them up, just hesitate and wait first and go in if necessary)

- Children and Babies need to play by themselves in the day and not always be entertained. If they are used to their own company and finding things to do, then things like going to bed by themselves isn't an issue. When children are playing alone, don't interrupt them unless you need to.

- Give children opportunities to learn the skill of waiting rather than instant gratification. They then learn to occupy themselves and deal with delayed gratification which leads to better concentration and reasoning later on and better dealing with stress. Children learning patience is also a way of respecting them.

- Allowing children to face up to their limitations and deal with frustration and showing them how to deal with it makes more happy, resilient people

- With food - expose children to as much variety, taste, color and sight to give them pleasure! Pleasure is the motivator of life.

- There are actually 4 magic words: Please, Thank you, Hello and Goodbye. Need to learn to say Hello with confidence as it's the first part of a relationship. It recognizes someone as a person and avoids selfishness, learning its not just about their feelings but about others feelings too. A greeting shows they are capable of behaving well and sets the tone for the connection.

- There's no such thing as kids food. Talk to them about how it feels in their mouth, is it crunchy? Create interest in food, stress visual and textural variety i.e. not two purees in one meal. Educate your children to appreciate all food. They have to taste everything and its ok if they don't like it, they haven't tasted it enough times yet.Make the meal fun. Don't make a big deal if they refuse food, just try again next time.

- Eating means sitting at the table with others taking time together and no one is doing anything else.

There is so much more I could note from this book. It is a wealth of wisdom for parents. There are so many things I was grey on that this has brought clarity for me and I've adopted these things into our routines.

I would highly recommend this book. It is not a book of do's and don't, it is a fresh way to look at parenting and life - even for those not parents! I'm excited because someone has finally written these things now that have been around for years and that work. Don't think of it as French so much as just a guideline, because I'm sure there are families from many cultures who have followed this kind of guideline for years.

I bought this book from Amazon.
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BT Invictus
5.0 out of 5 stars The Skinny on French Parenting
Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2013
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The other day, someone shared a "tweet" with me, tagged "DadsTalking," in which a father remarks, "I love my son's curiosity & spirit, ...but he always comments and talks back. How do I get him to stop without stifling him?" This simple tweet, marked by its earnestness, angst and apprehension, concisely encapsulates American attitudes toward parenting today. In her book Bringing up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting, Pamela Druckerman, a former journalist and American expatriate living in Paris, seeks to juxtapose American and French parenting methods. Druckerman argues that while American parents often admit that kids need limits, "...in practice, we're often unsure where these limits should be or we're uncomfortable policing them" (224). Part memoir, part cultural analysis, part childrearing manual, this book argues that while American parenting methods are likely to produce entitled, disobedient, and impetuous "Dylans" and "Isabellas," French parenting methods are likely to produce respectful, well-behaved and disciplined "Pierres" and "Paulettes." And on top of this, French mothers are less haggard, less sleep-deprived and more confident than American mothers. Bringing Up Bebe explores the reasons behind this discrepancy and presents a French alternative to the neurotic, guilt-ridden and vacillating American way.

It shouldn't come as a surprise, then, that more than a few American mothers dislike this book. (Elaine Sciolino's review in The New York Times is less than glowing). Some reviewers criticize Druckerman for what they perceive to be an over-generalized misrepresentation of American mothers. Druckerman is clear about the fact that she is comparing college-educated, white, middle-to-upper-middle class American parents, particularly those who are also urban, to college-educated, white, middle-to-upper-middle class Parisian parents. Of course we all know American parents in this demographic who don't quite fit the mold she describes, but, based on my own personal reading, as well as my teaching and parenting experiences, I found her assessments to be quite accurate and very often convicting.

I'm giving this book five stars, not because I felt a great affinity for the author while reading (especially not after I learned from a different source what she got her husband for his fortieth birthday!) and not because I agreed with every French parenting precept I found in the book. I'm giving it five stars because I loved every second of reading it, I couldn't stop talking about it over dinner with my husband, I felt compelled to write in the margins of pretty much every page, I'm already seeing the fruit of its application to my life, I want to share it with my friends - and not just those who are moms, and, most importantly, because this is the first secular resource on parenting that has not made me feel plagued with anxiety. It didn't make me feel guilty for preferring sleep schedules to co-sleeping, infant seats and playpens to habitual baby-wearing and the "cry-it-out" method to long, sleepless nights, perforated by several nursing sessions. This book confirmed what I've always believed to be true about wise parenting and served as a corrective against the areas in which I am too insecure to follow through on my resolves. And it made me laugh and feel good while I was at it.

That being said, the ideas presented in the book are not exactly novel. I often associate Parisian women with French feminism, student protests, casual sex and aversion to religion - certainly not with traditional family structures and parenting methods. And yet, French parenting is at odds with contemporary American parenting because it rejects our progressive, child-centered, self-esteem-enhancing methods. French parenting is relatively traditional, parent-centered and authoritative. In fact, much of what I read in Bringing Up Bebe sounded very similar to what I've read from evangelical Christian author Gary Ezzo, creator of the infamous and widely disputed Babywise series. Both insist that the home be parent-and not child- centered, meaning that parents, not children, establish the family's rhythm. Both see prolonged "nursing on demand," as entirely untenable, and advocate, instead, regular feeding schedules. Both promise to have an infant sleeping through the night by two months of age, even if it involves resorting to the much maligned "cry it out" method. (Although, Druckeman euphemistically calls the French version of the CIO method "Le Pause," the two are essentially the same: don't pick the baby up the instant he cries, but instead assess the situation and see if he might simply be trying to settle himself down to rest; be willing to let a toddler cry at night in his crib for longer periods of time if he is refusing to sleep.) Both stress that the mother and father's relationship to one another not be sacrificed, willingly or unwillingly, to the demands of childrearing but, instead, be nourished and tended to, even if this involves setting early bedtimes for kids, establishing clear rules for mealtimes and encouraging more independent play. Both view firm and consistent discipline in a child's life as something that makes him ultimately content in his own skin and prepared for real-life challenges; it's okay for a parent to say "no" and "it's me who decides." Both encourage parents to be sensitive to a child's needs. And both promise that these principles not only make life easier for the parents, but serve a child's best interests as well.

Of course these methods will sound a lot more attractive to the world coming from a sophisticated, svelte Parisian woman in designer jeans than from Evangelical Ezzo. Anti-Ezzo message boards are peppered with comments like "dangerous and manipulative," and "this book should be burned" and (my favorite), "It makes me SICK that they are there convincing innocent new parents how to 'raise' their children, when their own children do not even talk to them!" It's hard to imagine anyone saying such uncharitable things about the lovely Monique, Samine and Laurence. It's also worth noting that the values and presuppositions driving these strategies are undoubtedly different for Ezzo than I would imagine they are for most French parents. (The desire to eat smelly cheese sans interruptions from whining children probably propels much of the traditional parenting styles in France - not a firm conviction in the doctrine of original sin...) But, regardless of motivation, the parenting techniques outlined by conservative, evangelical-types share striking similarities with those of the Parisians Druckerman profiles- much to my surprise! It's not every day that "evangelical" and "French" go in the same sentence!

While I was astonished by these similarities, Bringing Up Bebe outlines a number of distinctly French approaches to parenting, most of which are an absolute pleasure to read about. (According to Druckerman, Rousseau and French psychoanalyst Francoise Dolto are responsible for indelibly shaping French attitudes toward childrearing.) Where Gary Ezzo tends to be overly dogmatic and rigid, the French parents Druckenman observes are wonderfully nuanced, strategic and sensitive, all while maintaining their high expectations for behavior. For example, I very much prefer the French method of refining a child's palette ("You may be excused after you try at least one bite of every dish on your plate") to Ezzo's legalistic one ("You will stay in your highchair until that plate is licked clean!"). I loved the French idea of cadre - that is, building a firm framework of boundaries for a child's behavior and then giving him the freedom to move about unrestricted within those boundaries. French parents also have a wonderful category for behaviors that are perhaps mildly annoying and naughty but not worth fighting battles over. These minor infractions, over which both parents and children are meant to chuckle, are called les betises by both parents and children. (Druckerman considers a betise to be something akin to saying caca boudin, that is, "poop sausage." ) And lastly, I love that French parents tell their children to "be wise," instead of knocking them over the head with the overused "be good," and I love that they give children a firm attend! (wait) when they want them to be quiet or be patient.

It's this concept of attend! that I have found difficult to enforce as the mother of a toddler. While I've accepted that my daughter go through a brief stage of crying in her crib at night so we can all benefit from consistent sleep, I find that my resolve is a lot weaker in the face of daytime crying, which typically occurs about thirty minutes before dinner. As a result, I often find myself bouncing a toddler on my hip while trying to dodge splatterings of oil from whatever I am cooking on stovetop. The French mothers in Bringing Up Bebe and their conviction that a mother must not capitulate to the whims and fancies of a child when she has pressing domestic duties to accomplish, both for the mother's sanity and the child's good, have inspired me to reevaluate my current approach to pre-dinner mayhem. The French way is as simple as this: When I'm cooking and my daughter beckons for me to pick her up, I bend down, calmly explain that she has to wait, confident that she understands every word I am saying, and then resume dinner preparation, without feeling guilty. She usually clamors at my legs for a moment, and then toddles off to find something else to do, and within minutes, I usually hear her happily singing or babbling to herself. Upon observing this the other day, my husband exclaims, "I like the new French you!" while giving me a side-hug. His expression sobers as he considers the French predilection for extramarital affairs, and he adds, "Now, just don't become all French in our marriage."
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Alvin Scotsdale
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Book
Reviewed in Canada on June 23, 2021
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Our twins were sleeping uninterrupted from 12-8am by just shy of 3 months old based on these methods. They still sleep like magic to this day at four years old. The bed sharing crowd is free to do as they please, but this worked perfectly, and my kids are happy, loved, and well adjusted. I meanwhile watched another young family break all the rules set out in this book and stick to the clingy parent methods, it looked far more stressful on parent and child.

The food part of this book is also magic. My kids eat everything, there is no such concept as picky eating in our household. Great book with some great advice, I recommend it to every new parent I speak to.
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isabel
5.0 out of 5 stars It is a must!
Reviewed in Brazil on February 22, 2019
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This book made me company in lonely nights feeding my baby and holding my mouth to not laugh too loud! I wish this book never ended.
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Giuseppe
5.0 out of 5 stars Davvero un bel libro
Reviewed in Italy on February 23, 2020
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Davvero un bel libro. Interessante e pieno di spunti
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Ana Paula
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in Mexico on August 29, 2017
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It's a funny book (novel style), and let's face it, spot on: whether or not french parents are the amazing creatures therein described, we should all aspire, at the very least, to be those type of disciplined parents.
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LPK
5.0 out of 5 stars Un livre drôle et instructif sur les bienfaits de l'éducation à la française
Reviewed in France on June 15, 2017
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Ayant élevé mes enfants aux Etats-Unis et en France, ce livre (conseillé par des amies américaines) m'a forcément parlé... mais parlera aussi à tous les parents qui peuvent parfois douter de leurs intuitions en termes d'éducation, ou pas convaincus par le système éducatif français !
Finalement, on se plaint souvent mais on n'est pas si mal lotis, en tant que parents français.
Grossesse sereine, qualité des crèches et des écoles, bébés qui font vite leurs nuits, enfants fins gourmets... sans trop tomber dans les clichés, Pamela Druckerman décrit son expérience de la maternité "à la française" avec son oeil venu d'ailleurs (son étonnement devant des choses qui nous paraissent aller de soi en tant que français fait toujours sourire), et apporte au débat ses recherches sur l'éducation et le développement de l'enfant.
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