The non- joie of parenting, US style

Jennifer Conlin on the joys of European parenting and the contrast elsewhere

Hardly a week goes by without an article or a book suggesting the newest, best — or oldest, but still best — way to raise a child. The most recent fixation is with the supposed superiority of the French.

I have been reading with great nostalgia Pamela Druckerman’s musings on the calmness of French parenting in Bringing Up Bébé. I too was a parent in France, having given birth to my son there some 15 years ago, after having a d a u g h t e r, now 20, in England, and her sister, now 16, in Belgium. In fact, it wasn’t until 18 months ago, when my husband and I finally returned to the States, that I first experienced motherhood in America.

Until then, all I knew were the joys of European parenting, from the way my children ate everything from coq au vin to kedgeree to our tranquil family life of w e e k e n d walks, nightly dinners and relaxing vacations.

Sadly, I now know it is easier to preach benign parenting from one’s pretty perch in Paris than it is to import those traits. Believe me, I have tried and now realise why my friends always rolled their eyes at me when I visited each summer with my tidy, tantrum- free ( well, nearly) toddlers. It is now hard to look forward to summer, because we have already been told our annual August vacation with the cousins can’t happen because “preseason” for both of my children’s fall sports starts in mid- August, and in my daughter’s case, will consist of both a morning and an afternoon training session. ( I plan to pack her a picnic and leave her there.) Not only has my gas bill grown astronomically because of the chauffeuring, but my waist size has also multiplied from walking less and eating more. ( Who has time to cook when the clock says it’s pickup time again?)

And don’t get me started on my lack of an adult life. I have become an expert at reselling concert tickets, canceling dinner reservations and missing work deadlines. My social life now consists of sitting next to a friend at a college counseling meeting, chatting to my daughter’s Spanish teacher during the spring choir concert or cleaning up with another mom after our daughters’ end- of- season sports dinner. In France, I never saw anything above the first floor of my children’s school, except the time I mistakenly went upstairs in search of the drop- off for a permission form allowing them to take my 5- year- old to overnight pony camp for a week. Jennifer Conlin is an author

— NYT