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I’m not one of those new parents who’s rushing out to read a bunch of parenting books, but this was given to me as a gift by a close friend who told me it gave her a path forward out of the trenches when she had a newborn, so of course I read it. It’s not a perfect book by far, but there is a lot of good stuff in here.

This book’s thesis — that NOT making your life 110% about your child and leaving space for you as a person — was extremely validating. Especially in the face of American parenting culture, which often looks more like martyrdom.  It validated a lot of my instincts that some people on the internet might have told me were selfish or wrong. The idea that it’s genuinely better for my child to learn how to wait rather than have her every need catered to or every word listened to absolutely immediately? So freeing.

The chapters on sleep were also interesting, especially because they aligned really nicely with everything my husband and I had already learned in the Taking Cara Babies newborn class (which I HIGHLY recommend).

(Finally, beware there is definitely some fatphobia here. I wasn’t a huge fan of the chapters that examined “bouncing back” culture. If you’re sensitive or vulnerable to that kind of thing, be advised.)

There were some interesting takes on this and as someone who is French American I was able to reflect on some key differences in perspectives. I do not agree with some aspects of this book, especially

the large portion that talks negatively about the body. However, as someone who has a French family I have noticed that they often comment on people’s bodies and are harsher when they are speaking of their own family member or even about themselves. Through this book and others I have realized that this is a societal norm in France rather than my own family’s twisted way of viewing other people. I view it as a very harmful way to go about life and did not enjoy that part of the book.

A lot of the advice in this book is common sense and things I had already learned from my very non-French family. The only bits of information that struck me as uniquely French (or at least nothing I had heard from in my circle) were the toxic parts of French culture relating to intolerance of other kinds of peoples or parenting styles, the strange distaste for breastfeeding, the pressure for the mom to bounce back for the man in the relationship, and on a more positive note, the socialized health and childcare, which obviously makes parenting easier than it would be in the states. I wish Druckerman would have spent more time on these aspects on the culture. This was an interesting read, nonetheless.