This book was a huge fad a few years ago but I didn’t have a bebe to bring up at that point so I didn’t read it. Yesterday, though, I did and enjoyed it a lot.
For those who don’t know: the author is an American immigrant in Paris who discovered that the way her French acquaintances raise their children is vastly superior to what the hovering, anxious, ultra competitive and permissive American parents she knows do. I’ve never met any American parents who behave like the ones she describes. Everybody I know belongs to an intellectually sophisticated class, and we are all already “French parents.” But I like the book anyway because it’s fun to read about people you never met and can’t imagine knowing.
What I like about the author, Pamela Druckerman, is that she is a model immigrant. She is so excited about her new country, so happy to learn about it, so far removed from any attempt to lecture the locals on the right way to live, and so understanding of the fact that nobody in the new country owes her friendship, kindness and acceptance that one can only applaud her. Druckerman still practices her cultural rituals and hangs out with fellow immigrants but she understands that the children born in France should be free to absorb the French culture as much as they need to feel that they belong.
Whether temporary or permanent, migration can either be a source of growth and learning something new or a source of constant frustration if you convince yourself that it’s beneath you to adapt.
Clarissa's Blog 
When I read this book I felt that some of the practices were intrinsic to French society and culture. For example, the amount of maternity leave and medical support she talked about was simply unthinkable to Americans then and sadly, Americans now.
It seemed like some of the stress Americans introduced to their child rearing practices had to do with the lack of a safety net and a need to justify intensive parenting.
What I like about the author, Pamela Druckerman, is that she is a model immigrant.
It’s a completely different tone and attitude than Eat, Pray, Love or that of many travelogues.
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I didn’t read Eat, Pray, Love because I saw the author on TV – on Oprah I think – and she made an impression of a very smug and dumb person. So I didn’t touch it.
Yesterday I had lunch with a friend who raised 4 truly brilliant, exceptionally successful children. She says she was so busy trying to make ends meet as a single mother on food stamps that she left the kids alone and didn’t hover. And they are now amazing and very happy.
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“She is so excited about her new country, so happy to learn about it, so far removed from any attempt to lecture the locals on the right way to live, and so understanding of the fact that nobody in the new country owes her friendship, kindness and acceptance that one can only applaud her. ”
That could partly be attributed to the fact the her new country is France. Americans have such an inferiority complex when it comes to countries in western europe. Oh those sexy english/italian/french accents, blah blah. Like you’ve said, there’s this whole cottage industry of books devoted to how to live/eat/drink/raise kids like the French. With that mindset, you bet she’s going to devote her life to shedding her american identity and adopting her new cool French identity.
I don’t know who she is, but I doubt she’d behave similarly if she immigrated to Kenya, or Pakistan. In those places it’s cool to adopt the ‘expat’ identity. Not speak a lick of the local language, hang around only with other expats, patronize only a few specific western bars/restaurants, etc.
Of course, your point remains. Ideally you’d want all immigrants to a country eager to adopt its culture, language, and norms.
That’s what I did!
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“I don’t know who she is, but I doubt she’d behave similarly if she immigrated to Kenya, or Pakistan. In those places it’s cool to adopt the ‘expat’ identity. Not speak a lick of the local language, hang around only with other expats, patronize only a few specific western bars/restaurants, etc.”
In Poland in the 1990s there were two separate….. spheres of Americans with very little overlap. There were there expats (mostly in Warsaw) who acted much as you describe.
There were those who actually… lived in Poland, knew the language to varying degrees, knew how to get things done, knew more local people than foreigners (and the foreigners we knew were likely to not be Americans) etc. I had very brief contact with the expats through a friend who was more in the second category too but had to deal with them at work… and that little was more than enough. brrrrr
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It’s like Russian speaking immigrants in the US. They all become Putinoid because Putin mirrors their hatred of the US. The only question I have for them is why are they here if they detest it so much? They seem to be in real pain because everything here rubs them the wrong way.
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If one can’t get excited about and fall in love with Kenya or Pakistan, they shouldn’t go. They’ll only be miserable and make everybody around them miserable.
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