<p>Marite has a quote on the approach to parenting in France which she can explain better than I. Basically, the theme is that the quest for perfection is the enemy of “good enough”…that in pushing for more you sometimes lose something that is perfectly satisfactory or better.</p>
<p>Airing dirty laundry about parenting concerns is a uniquely Western concept, of course. This would never play with an Asian audience groomed to “save face.”</p>
<p>My mother-in-law, always wise, tells me that in her era parenting was “pass fail”…sounds a whole lot healthier than mothering in the “age of anxiety” …yuk. Non-American woman I know often talk about how glad they were to leave the playgrounds of America for less competitive pastures. …It makes me anxious just to think about reading the book, so I won’t! </p>
<p>As for French women, dmd77, you left out the one other thing they do better…smoke cigarettes (hence the skinnier, though not the live longer-really?)…</p>
<p>Yep, French women live longer, even if they smoke more. (It’s not clear they smoke more; I think more of them smoke a little, but fewer smoke a lot, if you follow me.)</p>
<p>I refer to the entire east-coast obsession with perfect parenting as “competitive parenting.” One can choose to compete or not. Personally, I’ve always worked at least part-time and sometimes full-time, my DH and I still have sex and I still enjoy it, and my kids are doing very well. (In all fairness, I do think that in the major east-coast cities life is more competitive in general. I remember that about living near Boston.)</p>
<p>I will also note that France has a ten percent unemployment rate and that women find it hard to get good jobs precisely because their jobs have to be saved for three years if they go on maternity leave. And that despite the apparently luxurious nature of child-rearing in France, their birth rate (like the rest of Europe’s) is declining below replacement numbers.</p>
<p>EDIT: I just looked at some of the tables in the CDC report more closely, and found that once women reach age 65, US women live another 18.3 years and French women live another 18.2. So I guess old French women don’t live longer than old American women. (That’s on page 76.)</p>
<p>Roby: That French saying is not strictly about parenting, actually. It’s about not overdoing things and leaving well enough alone.
Dmd: In parts of France, notably the Languedoc, the birth rate has been low for decades, if not a whole century. The average family has one child–not enough for replacement.<br>
Luxurious child-rearing? There’s free daycare starting at a few months old.
You may be right about competitive parenting–which is not the same as trying to raise well-adjusted kids.</p>
<p>The women in one of the articles mentionned above remind me of some I’ve met through my kids…one was obsessing the other day about what type of fruit chunks to put on kabobs for a kids’ class party…she was literally holding court on the topic…I turned to her and said," This is not a White House State dinner. It’s a fifth grade party!" and everyone sort of looked at me as if I’d lost it, but I thought that SHe was losing it!</p>
<p>My friend, after being told to make some type of cocktail sausage-type appetizer (do little kids even like those…?) for a kindergarten party, was informed that she must decorate the crockpot to resemble a fairy tale character to fit in with the theme of the event. Where did this craziness come from??</p>
<p>I recently attended a children’s craft event where us moms sat around discussing our “mother guilt” (working moms) and how make it up to our children. One mom admitted that she uses the lunches for her two sons to make up for her work (she’s an atty). Her boys are 3 and 6. She sends them to school with sushi she has rolled herself…or mussels in red sauce (which she makes fresh that morning)…or elaborate veggie plates where she carves the veggies into animals and flowers, etc. </p>
<p>None of the other moms were surprised by this. As a matter of fact, I saw some faces that seemed to feel more guilty that they had been buying the school lunch - horror!</p>
<p>Well I do admit that my kids have never eaten lunches at school. My oldest attended private schools that didn’t have a cafeteria!
When her sister began at public school in 3rd gd, my first thought was “she can buy her lunch!”.
Unfortunately the lunches were unappealing and greasy, so she took her lunch everyday.
Now at least she can go off campus and buy food that is appealing and greasy!
She does take her lunch about 3 x a week, but how would you keep sushi cold enough for lunch time?</p>
<p>I make my kid’s lunch on most days. Same thing everyday: a sandwich, a fruit and a snack. It’s to make sure he gets out of the house in time. As for why he does not eat cafeteria food? He has only 20 minutes for lunch and does not want to spend that time in line. So he and his chums eat outside.
It’s not mother guilt: I have none. My kids are well-adjusted; they have benefitted from not being the sole focus of my energies. When my S proved to be a finicky eater, we found that presenting math problems to him made food go down faster. It saved lots of time devising chi-chi tidbits. Unfortunately, math books cost even more than cookbooks, and have not saved us from the expense of going out to sushi dinners on a fairly regular basis. :(</p>
<p>Wow, this is fascinating. Just amazing. I am very glad I live in a funky town where people are either working class or “Sixties leftovers,” although I have had my brushes with neighboring towns where it is as several of you are describing. A mom from one of these complained to me that the kids were now not only having their own birthday parties but also very elaborate birthday parties for their dogs, with gourmet dog treats and the guests expected to bring expensive presents!</p>
<p>Surely that mother would be doing more for her 3- and 6-year-olds if she just sat down with them and listened to them tell goofy jokes for a while instead of making radish roses and carrot curls?</p>
<p>We live in an area where some of what is described takes place. In fact, I have been inquiring to the homeroom moms about WHEN the class parties will STOP. Kids are in school to learn, not have a party every month! Oldest is in 5th…parties have slowed down abit.
I am a firm believer in “good enough”.
Life is not fair, nor perfect. That’s the way it is. I try to do better each day I wake up & encourage my kids to do the same, but no chasing perfection here!</p>
<p>She’s an amazing mom…the organizer of many of our mother/child activites for our little group. She knows more about what’s available for kids in the area than the local paper…and is happy to make recommendations and give you a review, via email, of the latest puppet show, feature at the zoo, etc - and she hosted an introductory service project at her home in November, where pre-K kids learned about service and how to be “Angels” to others - aptly named “Angel Project”.</p>
<p>Let’s not be so quick to judge that she could do more for them in other areas…as she well may be up at 4am to make these lunches while her children are still asleep. No wonder moms have guilt.</p>
<p>I see much of the anxiety of being the perfect mom come from those who were such strivers in everything. They did well in school, in college, in jobs, bought a great house, have a good life, and then come the kids. It all has to fit into the plan they have made, and a good plan it is. My neighbors fit this to a “T”. They are highly successful careerwise, went to selective schools, have the best of everything. They just had a set of twins after years of seeing fertility specialists, and they are in their early 40’s. It is very difficult for them, as they are learning that even in infancy kids do not toe the line for you, and you often do not get what you put in. A wonderful, nurturing mom can have a colicky baby that looks like he is in agony much of the day and night, with no respite even after seeing a number of doctors and trying everything and anything. Sleep deprivation kicks in, the sitter quits, and frustration and shortness of temper occurs. Very stressful. And that is one of the easier uncontrollable things you may experience as a parent. I have known moms who have really worked to do things the right way, only to find it did not suit the child, and things just happen. Sometimes even a kid raised in the best homes will steal something. Kids raised with books and enrichment decide they do not like reading. Kids whose parents have had a good work ethic prefer to be lazy. Thrify parents can have spendthrift kids. And despite all of the emphasis in following family rules and a household where you may well raise kids who toe the line, you can get a recalcitrant one that can drive you crazy. Though with some kids these transgressions are predictable and may be reflective of the family situation, I see a number of kids that just have the right personality factors where I doubt if it would matter who was raising them; they would still have the same problems.</p>
<p>I did lunch duty for my little guys class a few years ago, and I really hate to tell you how many gourmet and expensive lunches went into the trash. I had posted on another thread that my 5th grader makes a half dozen nutella and marshmellow fluff sandwiches several times a week (he checks the lunch menu, some days the product is hotter) and sells them, to kids who bring their lunches or buy them, as my kids go to a private school where families are not wont to send them lunchless. He also takes order for them. He also sold candy–little chocolate types of milky ways, snickers that come in those mixed packs that you give out for Halloween, until the school closed him down on that one. I’m waiting for them to crack down on the sandwiches. I used to make lunches every day when we first moved into the private school world, but my older kids pay for the little ones lunches now. It is expensive.</p>
<p>Your nutella sandwich story made me laugh. </p>
<p>" 5th grader makes a half dozen nutella and marshmellow fluff sandwiches several times a week (he checks the lunch menu, some days the product is hotter) and sells them, to kids who bring their lunches or buy them, as my kids go to a private school where families are not wont to send them lunchless."</p>
<p>I bet your 5th grader is headed for Wharton in a few years! I once sold my entire craft kit (the huge old ones with cut out construction paper, strips of colred paper, etc) to various neighbors via a little toy shopping cart that I played with when I was about 6. I was supposed to be playing outside, but was going door to door selling my wares(guess I was pretty unsupervised). My parents were upset and walked with me to return the money in exchange for my kit supplies. My neighbors must have been very nice to have played along. Today, I make a handsome living in a client/revenue relationship position with a large corp. </p>
<p>I’ve heard of those sandwiches before…and they sound like the most gross things I can imagine (I think peanut butter is gross). Do you supply the materials at no charge or does some of the profit come back to “the house”? LOL…too funny :)</p>
<p>I buy lunchables when they’re on sale for .98 cents! Other than that the kids make their own lunches and I try to make sure they’re healthy before they walk out the door. Since I gave them this job I have also heard on the side of some marketing efforts - mostly by way of bartering. It seems some kids prefer the homemade stuff and their folks just buy them lunch, and my kids have figured out what “sells.” Go figure.</p>
<p>As far as the school craziness, maybe stay at home moms just have too much time on their hands and can throw themselves into this wild ride. I hate it. My least favorite months are September and May - when all the excessive school parties and activities dominate our lives: end of year class picnic, field day, goodbye party for teacher, teacher appreciation day, etc. I feel the same way about snack schedules for sports. Please. I can figure out what snack my own kid needs after a game and send it with him/her! This becomes just one more load in my life and another thing to remember to do, bestowed upon me by some mother with way too much time on her hands. Doesn’t something around her house need cleaning or something?</p>