Bringing up Bébé Book Review

Just finished what I thought was a super-interesting read. I finally got to my turn in line at the library, so here goes!

Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think people who are all upset and think Druckerman is another fawning Francophile have actually not read her words. That said...

I very much enjoyed this book from a sociological perspective. The French are different from us. They have different ways of parenting, for better or for worse, that we can learn from, just as in any culture different from ours. It is actually very interesting and refreshing to realize the myriad ways that we raise our children that just seem "correct" that are actually simply cultural.

I personally think my child and I will benefit from the paradigm shift from "modifying behavior" and "punishment" ideas, to the "education" thought process that Druckerman shares. When you think about the fact that you are simply giving your child an education in how to live life and be a functioning person in society, it takes a lot of the anger out of discipline. I feel, as the author professed to be, more calm when I think about parenting and correction this way.

The way you raise your children is very, very personal, and people make different choices all the time. It just can't hurt to have a more global, informed perspective, in my view! I enjoyed this book for what it was, a study on French parenting...NOT a universal guidebook on parenting.


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Keeping Up

I've lived in quite a few places in my life. One year of elementary school, I moved schools five times. FIVE. In one year.

Luckily, by the grace of God, and not my oddly awkward people skills, I tended to make friends and acquaintances fairly easily. Maybe it was a coping mechanism so that I could just be a chameleon and blend in. Although that is kinda hard to do when you are the redheaded, freckled perpetual new girl.

Lakewood (CA), Long Beach (CA), Sydney (Aus.), Denver (CO). These are the places I have called my home, among others. These are places that hold a spot in my heart. But more than that, people reside in these places that I loved dearly, and now in addition to loving them, by virtue of distance, I get to miss them terribly, too.

Making friends might have been easy, but now keeping up with my beloved friends who are scattered all over the globe is quite the task. Thank God for Facebook, I don't care what anyone says to the contrary!

Now that I am a wife and mother and church-planter and ministry partner, keeping up with friends sometimes seems to fall by the wayside. I've got a best friend who lives an hour away whose due date is today. I miss her! I've got a fantastic sister in Christ who also lives an hour away and is pregnant and enjoying the wonders of the second trimester...less nausea, starting to show, and starting to pick out names! I miss her. I've got a best friend in Australia who just had her second little one and is about to spend a week away from her husband. I miss her. I've got friends who have recently moved away, family who live multiple states away, friends 10,000 miles away across oceans...the modern world allows for so much free movement that it is difficult to follow where everyone is or where they are going. But I do miss them.

My friends, far and wide, you are in my heart, my thoughts and when you come to mind, my prayers. We may not get to talk every day or even every week. BUT. You are all a part of my life, and I love you!

And many more... xoxo

Advent

For most folks, the word advent is a strange one. Perhaps, if you scored well on the verbal portion of your SATs, you know that it means the beginning or start of something. Maybe, if you are a Christmas junkie, you know it because it describes the type of calendar you can buy that has little doors filled with chocolate for each day of December counting down to Christmas day.

For those of us residing in the Christian tradition, Advent means a season of waiting, not unlike Lent. We await and eagerly anticipate the arrival of the Messiah, the birth of the King of Kings in a dirty little manger. Sure, it happened 2,000 years ago, but we celebrate the event every year to remind ourselves of the coming of our Savior.

Advent is more than just waiting for the day we get to open our presents and eat yummy food with our family. It is the anticipation of celebration of the start of something altogether different: the seeming insanity of the incarnation, God becoming flesh in the form of a tiny, helpless child.

It begins today. It is the advent of Advent. And so, I wait...