I’m always a bit bummed to hear when close friends are pregnant because I know that our friendship will forever be altered. Parents stop being who they are and devolve into secondary beings whose lives are ruled by these little dictators, otherwise known as American brats.
I’m sure I’ll get flak for the above statement, “You wouldn’t know because you’re not a parent. Wait until you have kids of your own. You’ll see. You don’t understand what it’s like.”
I will say that I do have one friend (I can only think of one) who strikes the parenting balance very well. She doesn’t need to read this post, but the rest of you, please continue.
I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal that made me feel slightly vindicated in thinking that parents these days are losing sight of their own identity. The author, Pamela Druckerman, is promoting her book “Bringing Up Bebe” about her own experience as an American mother raising her kids in France. It is getting the same critical attention Amy Chua received for writing “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”
Here is the point that I starred, underlined, and highlighted: “We tend to view whether kids are good at waiting as a matter of temperament. In our view, parents either luck out and get a child who waits well or they don’t.”
She posits that French parenting involves, and possibly centers around “me” time, as in “adult” time. Parenting should not be solely devoted to managing the affairs of your child, running around after them, punishing them, screaming at them, watching them throw tantrums. There should be a set schedule of sleep, meals, play time, and adult time! Most importantly, you need to teach children about delayed gratification. Let them cry. As a friend and new father told me recently, “Kids don’t die from crying.”
Let them be hungry. Ditch the ziplock bag of Cheerios in your purse and let them wait until they’re sitting in their high chair during their set meal time. American children have no self-control. How many times did I snort around the freezer helping myself to bowls (bowls, not scoops) of ice-cream because I was bored! When your kids don’t have their Cheerios when they want them, well hell, your cheery day turns into a teary day. WAHHHHHHH! You know what I’m talking about!
It even starts before your little monster is born. In the book, she describes asking a bewildered waiter if the Parmesan cheese in her pasta is pasteurized. Cuckoo, cuckoo.
Be the parent, the adult, the grown-up. Make the kid fit into your lifestyle instead of you living in their doll house.
i’m sure you knew i’d have an opinion about this one! :))
i’m not going to say you’re wrong because, frankly, i need some more of that “balance” in my life. i am definitely too far in the Kid-Centered direction on the pendulum, and i do need to read that book.
having said that, one of my favorite phrases is “i was a much better mom before i had kids.” it’s a lot easier to have a parenting ‘philosophy’ before they show up and we realize they are not mere extensions of ourselves – and this is actually the topic in my (currently-being-written) blog post about the 2nd Deadly Sin: Wrath.
Your post reminds me of an article i read a few weeks ago: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/kara-gebhart-uhl/mom-judgments_b_1319775.html
definitely up for a healthy debate 🙂
I’m sure I’m guilty of some typical American parenting (I haven’t read Bringing Up Bebe so I don’t know much about the issues)… but I will say that I don’t understand when other parents say to me, “I just can’t bear to hear my child cry!” (And I’ve heard it on a quite a few occasions.)
I honestly have no problems with hearing my son cry… I know it’s good for him to learn to deal with disappointment, or with how to solve a problem by himself, or just with “Mom isn’t going to deal with your temper tantrum right now, so just do what you gotta do; I’ll be over here when you’re done.”
Adding in an email from a friend.
Read your blog this morning about parenting skills… Your first two paragraphs are both correct: (1) babies are dictators to which parents willingly submit and (2) you can’t fully appreciate why (1) occurs. Bottom line, you are right. But knowing what the problem is and successfully implementing a solution are two different things.
The article you reference appears to be related to another WSJ story from last week (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304450004577277482565674646.html?mod=lifestyle_newsreel) re: American middle class children being self-centered and dependent and parents trying to force “family time.”
As many, if not most, of your friends with parents will admit, pre-kids they had all sorts of lofty notions about how they’d rear their children to be perfect independent people that allowed the parents to maintain a semblance of their former life…. In reality, once the sleep deprivation kicks in (months, not days) all bets are off and you start making “compromises” (read: give in). On top of that, if you are not the only parent you have another sleep deprived slightly irrational person to deal with regarding your own parenting skills as well as hers/his and the consistency or lack thereof between the two skill sets. Unfortunately, cheerios won’t shut her/him up or bring them into line.
Oh, and I like the comment about the cheese. I’m gonna hold on to that one so I can tease you when you start asking whether the dairy product is pasteurized, where the fish was caught, etc.