"I worry that all this repression and enforced manners will kill any creative drive." Huh, where the hell did this one come from? Why would knowing that wiping you ass on the table cloth is bad prevent you from thinking outside the box? I can see the supper regimented approach as stifling to creativity, which is why kids after a certain age should have some free time. If the kid has 16 or so regimented activities (piano and violin are just a few) they may have limited creativity. However learning that certain behavior is acceptable and that parents need adult time is good and healthy for all children. The trick is finding the healthy balance. Kids should occasionally question authority (and live with the consequences) which they can not do if there is no authority available.

I recently spent a godawful 15 minutes in Toys 'R Us. It's a devastating example of how not to parent a child. Screaming, whining, crying. The "best" parenting I encountered was the mother keeping her two children at the curb with their new bikes while the father went to get the car. The mother asked one of her daughters "Do you want your bike?". The girl screamed "yes". The mother responded with "Then put your coat back on." Bribes... brilliant.

In contrast, my nephew recently told his mother "You always say 'no', but my daddy says 'no' more than you." (They're divorced.) Thankfully, his mother took that as a compliment and as verification that my brother is a good father. Which he is. He sets boundaries and expectations. My nephew just knows. I've witnessed only one very minor meltdown from my nephew in 7-1/2 years. And that one ended when my nephew realized the tantrum's pointlessness because he wasn't getting what he wanted.

I'm about as creative as they come, and I describe my parents as "loving fascists."

"And that one ended when my nephew realized the tantrum's pointlessness because he wasn't getting what he wanted." That's huge, made a huge difference to me. However my parents were one sided with this one. I don't or didn't throw tantrums cause they never worked. My brother usually got what he wanted by throwing tantrums. So he still lives with them and throws the same tantrums at 25. I'm resentful about the whole thing to be honest in the fact that he gets to live at home and has shit loads of play money. I just can't burden my parents by living there.

Both my girls know that they can't play that shite with me, throwing tantrums gets them nothing but loss of a privilege. #2 was pitching a fit the other day about doing her homework, and I told her, very calmly, "okay go take your shower, and then do your homework." She started to go off again, and I just gave the fisheye and said, "you can forget about TV for the rest of the week if you don't get your homework done." She shut up, did her homework, then took her shower without another word. It's amazing what boundaries can accomplish!

I am a stepmother to two boys (my husband has custody 85% of the time) and a biological mother to two boys. My two boys RARELY throw a tantrum, they know that it gets them absolutely no where but put in bed. My stepsons are much less likely to throw a tantrum around me than either of their biological parents because I am the most consistent of the three of us.

That being said, five years ago when my husband first got custody I received a phone call from the elementary school telling me that older stepson was being suspended for choking another child. There was abuse in his mother's home, he was not yet on Ritalin for his ADHD, there are a myriad of reasons for his actions, but this doesn't excuse the behavior in my opinion. I arrive at the school. Older stepson sees me and starts to make excuses for his behavior. I just looked at him and calmly said, "Hush." Well, wouldn't you know that the school had been forced to call CPS because of the choking. The CPS worker launched into a tirade for telling the child, who knew that he was in "time out" and had to be quiet, to be quiet. She even told me that she was going to take my son (the other wasn't born yet) from me.

Of course, me telling the child to be quiet deserves a woman screaming in my face about being a terrible parent, but when a preschool reported to CPS that their biological mother's boyfriend was locking them in their room for hours at a time, hitting them with belts, spitting in their faces, etc., nothing happens. The whole situation stinks.

While I pretty much agree, I do wonder why the French lack great rock bands, great filmmakers (working and alive today, not Truffaut), entrepreneurs, etc. French video game makers have to come here to excel. The French educational system is pretty class-ridden, and turning out a nation of people who aspire to work for the government has its price.

What the Telegraph writer doesn't mention is that the French kids she mentions are of a certain social class. Maybe Amy can explain BGBC.

Recently, at a managers meeting at my company we had a woman speak to us on the subject of "Generation Y in the workplace". It was an incredibly interesting talk. She went down the list of age groups and how they look at the world based on their experiences. "Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Gen X'ers and Generation Y'ers".
There is a whole industry dedicated to teaching managers how to deal with Gen Y'ers. Why? Because they are spoiled brats and if you don't treat them with kid gloves they will quit, go home and live with Boomer Mommy if they have to and/or get another job.
It seems all the Boomer helicopter parents have spoiled their little tykes, telling them they "can be anything they want to be" and now as "adults" they are chafing at having to work their way up from the bottom like the rest of us. It's a problem for managers needing to retain workers. What's interesting is the Gen Y'ers love the Boomers and vice versa but the Gen X'ers hate the Gen Y'ers. They see them for what they are: spoiled brats. As I tell my nieces + nephews, on the plus side, if they do a good job and keep their mouths shut they'll stand out as a star among their Gen Y peers. So there is opportunity for those smart enough to see it.

BCBG ("bay say bay zhay"): Bon Chic, Bon Genre, the rich, young 16th arrondisement types who compare to what used to be called preppies or Sloane Rangers in the UK.

Kate: There are no good French rock bands because the French language and rock-'n-roll lyrics just don't go together. No matter how you try to arrange it, death-metal lyrics in French just don't have the same impact as they do in nasty Anglo-Saxon English.

On the other hand, there are quite a few French musicians who are big in the club-music and electronica scene. I attribute that in part to the fact that this music is mostly instrumental.

Absolutely right. French, which I happen to love speaking, is a very prissy language.

Here, a piece on the BCBG hood of Passy:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E1DF1431F931A35752C1A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

If you're there, go to the Norm's/Denny's of Passy, La Favorite.

And walk through Franck et Fils department store. Beautiful stuff, utterly unaffordable, thanks to the euro/dollar exchange.

There's also a depot vente out there that's great...forget the name...somewhere near Ave or Boulevard Franklin Delano Roosevelt. (Depot vente is a used clothing store. I get a lot of fab clothes at those in Paris...wearing a little jacket I got for 19 eu today, as a matter of fact, at the place down the block from the cafe Chez de L'Abbaye (the cafe on the corner of rue de Seine, 6th arrondisement).

I listen to Bande A Part on Sirius. There are different genres played at different times of day but always in French. I get a huge kick out of French rap more than their "rock". Especially when, in b/w verses in French, comes a "Yo yo, what's my name?" or something to that effect. French doesn't sound bad ass (aka B.A) no matter what. And adding in the English is worse considering it's w/ a French accent.

Hilarious.

I like the other stuff, though.

An elderly woman was eavesdropping and suddenly reached over and pinched the boy's ear until he squealed. "Listen to your mother," she said sternly in French.

This is something that I am so tempted to do sometimes. The closest have ever come was grabbing a boy who had to be around seven or eight by the arm and dragging him to his mother, after he plowed over my then three year old and a couple other little ones, on the play-structure. This of course, led to a confrontation with the mother, who was terribly offended and angry that I had man-handled her son. Keeping in mind that had I not been right there playing tag with my son and several other little ones when he plowed through a couple of them, one of the little boys would have taken a spill right off that landing of the play structure. It was only because several other parents came over to defend my actions that she realized calling the police (yes, she was going to go there) wouldn't get her anywhere.

On the other end, our neighbors below are a household run by an older black women who puts up with nothing. Her granddaughter was behaving rather badly (my son along with her) a couple days ago. I sent mine up to our apartment and picked her up to carry her to grandma. Grandma suggested that getting a firm grip on her ear makes it easier to move her than picking her up (it was much like trying to pick up a wiggly snake). She also mentioned that I had her permission to send granddaughter in for time-out.

Her attitude is, she fucked up with her own kids, she's not going to let her granddaughters end up that way.

Possibly the saddest consequence of bad parenting is that the parents get no allies against adversity and no-one decent enough to inherit the estate.

You can make a good case that poor parenting has put us where we are in history today.

> I do wonder why the French
> lack great...

Brilliant comment.

In the stereotype, French people don't seem so happy. Behind closed doors, maybe they're all fucking each other's spouses with some sort of sophisticated Continental abandon, but in public they're not playful. Their souls just don't seem flirtatious and experimental. They're all kind of sullen, holding their cigarettes backwards at the cafe and whining about how "The text has no meaning..."

I don't mean to be too simplistic about this... It's not a straight line from an unruly childhood to Kurt Cobain. But maybe those boundaries are a little too firm to permit innovation later in life. (Like the grown elephants who think they're tied to the fence post with twine, because it was enough to stop them when they were newborn.)

The United States gave the world Microsoft and Apple. France gave us Minitel. Favorite passage from the Wiki:

Also, because Minitels follow well-defined standards, there are hardly any compatibility problems.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the squirty wet dream of a European Commissioner. Minitel is a standard!

But I think this is the second most ironic thing about life on this planet: Standards are so useful that people can't resist adding new ones. Compared to Minitel, our internet is a frothing nightmare of incompatibilities and innovation. It's fucking glorious.

If you're in the mood to get some geek on, read this article. It explains how one of the commercial foundations of all this innovation is being withdrawn. A lot of the joy we've taken from computers in recent years could get a lot more complicated.

The ones putting up the best fight against this complication are the video gamers. The rude, obsessive teenage boys are giving the best fight to this corporate intrusion, just as they've done most of the fighting against the RIAA and other first-amendment oppressives.

At least in some contexts, unruly children are with us because we need them. As it happens, they're not French.

I really want to hear some of Gretch's French rap music.

Disagree. The French are very playful, and joke and tease a great deal.

"At least in some contexts, unruly children are with us because we need them."

True, but HOW unruly do we really need? I think a child can benefit from a balance.

It is detrimental for a child to act like a little adult all the time, and I think it's equally detrimental for a child to have no boundaries or rules. One produces a robotic automaton, and the other produces a unruly person likely to shoot another over tennis shoes.

I was brought up with a balance, and I try to convey that to my kids. There are times when you can just go nuts, have fun, and have few restrictions. Other times you should behave yourself. This is a good lesson to learn in life. A child on the playground should feel free to climb monkey bars, yell and act silly then possibly fall off, and cry loudly if it hurts. A child in at an art museum should be quiet and not touch the art (unless permitted), or disturb the other patrons.

Boundaries should not be too strict, but they should exist. And different ones should apply to different situations. I try to have the least rules we can to get the job done, but enforce those few consistently. Just about anything done to excess can be harmful.

Jerry Lewis: Case closed.

The French do not have some giant hard-on for Jerry Lewis. This is a myth. On the other hand, if you want Emmanuelle Richard to faint, or come close, mention that Starsky and Hutch are in the room.

Cecil Adams:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a991001.html

Jerry Lewis was hot in France in the 60s, but today is only remembered vaguely and in some quarters, dare I say it, even scorned. Film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, who lived in Paris in the early 70s, says when he was interviewed a couple years ago by the French rock weekly Les inrockuptibles, "They mentioned in their introduction, as an indication of how weird I was, that I preferred Jerry Lewis to Woody Allen.

An elderly woman was eavesdropping and suddenly reached over and pinched the boy's ear until he squealed. "Listen to your mother," she said sternly in French.

Uh Amy, Are not you the one who is adamantly opposed to spanking? But now you don’t have a problem with pinching an ear until they scream? Huh. What is wrong with a smack on the pants? Nothing after all huh Amy?

Uh, Rusty, I don't go through these articles and parse whether I agree with every single action taken. When kids are bratty in public, I say something to them, I don't hit, touch, or pinch them.

I mean, how silly to nitpick like this. I'm sure there was an a, an, or the in the piece I didn't much go for either. We could dig into that or we could discuss something interesting and meaningful.

How about we do the latter?

ok, thought you approved that’s all. Was a bit surprised.

If you had contradicted yourself, which all I could gather from this post was that you approved of the way the French raise their kids, then it was time for that meaningful conversation you were writing about. I don’t consider that the same as nit picking an a, an, or the in the piece. So I was not nit picking.

I approve of the way the French don't let kids get away with stuff, I didn't go through the article and do an inventory of everything I agree with or don't.

And yes, you are nitpicking. You thought this would be a good place to get in a little nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah.

If you actually were interested in what I think of women who grab and hurt other people's children in public, all you had to do was ask.

I really want to hear some of Gretch's French rap music.

MC Solaar is quite good; French works well with a slick old-school style flow.

My favorite French act, though is Ceux Qui Marchent Debout - sort of a brass/jazz/funk combo. Highly recommended.

i don't have kids. don't want them. so no real experience.

however, when i was younger, i taught day camp. there was a 6 year old who through a temper tantrum over some silly thing, and when it was over, i asked her what was wrong. it was a COMPLETELY NOVEL IDEA for this child to just tell someone what the problem was and then something might get done WITHOUT her pitching a fit. she never threw one for me again.

another 16 year old "helper" insisted on making fun of her learning-disabled brother in my class. she got kicked out of the room. her mother yelled at me for it, and i told her what happened. she was still upset about it, so i told her that her daughter would have plenty of time to ridicule her brother at home, but under no circumstances would she do it around me. ok, so that story doesn't really have a point. but it was fun.

the groups i taught were always well behaved, knew what exactly they were supposed to be doing and not doing, got reprimanded for misbehavior and rewarded for good deeds. they all thought i was the best teacher. one of the other ones let them get away with whatever they wanted to do and was always complaining to me that her kids never liked her and misbehaved all the time. my stepbrother was a little hellchild until my mother enforced some rules, and he to this day credits her with the fact that he's a responsible adult.

rules are good.

It seems that the US is a collection of individuals while the French see themselves as part of a soceety. Kids in the US seem to be jumping up/down and making all kinds of noise. But in Paris it's not uncommon to see an 8 year old taking her younger brother home, and they're alone. They might be holding hands and singing a song. If they run into a tight spot anyone in the street will help them out. While in the US kids faces have been on milk cartoons for many years.

Amy,
The example is the center piece of the example in the article. You supported the article. It appeared contradictory to your earlier arguments so I called you out on it. That would be what we call justified. Also, it is not a minute point.
If this isn’t (If you actually were interested in what I think of women who grab and hurt other people's children in public, all you had to do was ask.) inquiring how you feel; Uh Amy, Are not you the one who is adamantly opposed to spanking? But now you don’t have a problem with pinching an ear until they scream? I don’t know what is.
Are you perhaps saying I could have been more tactful? Then yes I agree, you deserve more tact. But I don’t think you intend to start the tact police on your blog. That would be nit picking.
Main Entry:
nit–pick•ing
Pronunciation:
\ˈnit-ˌpi-kiŋ\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
1nit
Date:
1956
: minute and usually unjustified criticism

My parents were German & Austrian, and I'm pretty sure they top the French in strict bootcamp type parenting. We all actually got spanked a few times in our lives, so we did know there were consequences to bad behaviour. My Viennese mom also made sure we all had impeccable table manners, from the age that one starts to sit at the table to eat & use cutlery.

Once we were around 16, we were considered well trained enough to be given free rein, which my female friends with Greek & Italian parents were very envious of. Their parents had a fairly Taliban attitude towards them as potential sluts so of course they rebelled and did a lot of stupid things which I would never consider, even at that age.

Gretchen and Crid, if you don't know him already, check out French rapper Kamini - he's smart and funny and does a great song mocking rap video gansta attitudes, including how French rappers drop in certain choice English phrases.

Search on "Kamini ptit coup de" on Youtube. The word following "coup de" doesn't belong on a civilized blog like Amy's :-)

Fatal Bazooka's "fous ta cagoule" is pretty funny too.

My mother is Suisse-Romande, which is somewhat different than actual French, but falls under the French cultural umbrella, and I also have many French relatives.

I will be raising my future kids in a more American way. I'm not saying I want them running around like maniacs, but the French are a cold people. I won't go into all the insults and put-downs I went through in the hands of my Swiss and French relatives, but they were not nice people. My French and Swiss cousins aren't doing any better now than my brother and I are. Even though, as they constantly berated us, he and I grew up in a savage land.

Which is not to say there aren't lovely things about Europe. But let's not over-glamorize the exotic, either. They treat each other with a cruelty I find unacceptable.