Voices
concurrent initiation into solid
foods seemed irritating and impossible. As I piled up articles
and books on sleep and parenting, I could not find anything
that would work. The two cultures that I had been excited to
embrace only sent tangential,
contradictory messages and for
my decrepit sleepless state, it
was no longer a laughing matter.
As it happens, this period saw
the cacophony surrounding Amy
Chua’s 2011 bestseller Battle
Hymn of the Tiger Mother, about
a Chinese-American mom whose
“Chinese” approach to parenting, while verging on abusive,
had startled and excited the
wired-in urban American mothers searching for lifelines and
panaceas for any number of parenting challenges.
While everyone was debating
the merits of “Chinese parenting,” I realized I had grown up
with dozens of kids whose parents
used an almost identically “firm”
approach that, ultimately, is as
Chinese as chicken tikka masala;
or apple pie, for that matter. But
none of these friends are Chinese.
Looking to foreign or “exotic” cultures for answers to universal parenting challenges, I was beginning
BHAKTI
SHRINGARPURE
HUFFINGTON
08.05.12
to realize, is ridiculous.
A few months later, an even
more ludicrous notion began to
burn through American parenting cyberspace: That French parenting is, in fact, superior. Pamela Druckerman’s Bringing Up
Bebe, another bestseller, seems
meant to make American moms
feel just about as low and awful
as they possibly can. The French
parents Druckerman depicts are
no-nonsense. They’re
independent. They’re
beautiful. Their kids
The
eat vegetables (even
two cultures
beets). They’ve got
that I had
the secret formula.
been excited
Having been a
to embrace
nanny in France duronly sent
ing college summers,
tangential,
and currently livcontradictory
ing in Paris, I find
messages.”
Bringing Up Bebe
not just fawning
but also simply untrue. I am appalled by some of Druckerman’s
descriptions of French parenting
techniques and French food culture, particularly as applied to
children. Druckerman’s universe,
insofar as it may actually exist,
represents probably the tiniest
possible minority in France.
Most of the parents here who