French Children Don’t throw Food
I loved this book, I mean I really, really loved it! I think it’s really well written, funny and doesn’t take itself too seriously. I wish I’d discovered it when my children were a lot younger as some of the parenting ideas within it are so good. Lots of it does still make sense and I have put a few of them into practise with Daisy and Bobby, for example the food philosophy, (so worth a read even if you have older children). I heard about it through the fantastic Chris Evans on may way to work one day whilst half listening to Radio 2. He kept going back to it and saying how amazing it was and how much he and his wife were enjoying it.
It does, however, seem to be a very marmite book, with extreme reactions. People either love it or hate it. Reading through the Mumsnet comments were quite hilarious!
The book focuses on its American author, Pamela Druckerman, being pregnant and bringing up children in Paris. She finds the French ladies are not obsessing over parenting books or birth plans or struggling with sleep deprivation (she claims French children sleep through from 3 months). There’s no guilt around bottle feeding or returning to work.
In a light-hearted way it is discussing how bringing up kids isn’t easy and questions whether we need to make it even harder for ourselves by following the very ‘do everything for them’ methods of an ‘Anglophone’ society.
Shelley x
P.S, I’d seriously love to hear your views on this when you’ve read it!
