Best 20 quotes of Pamela Druckerman on MyQuotes

By your 40s, you don't want to be with the cool people; you want to be with your people.

French parents are very concerned about their kids. They know about pedophiles, allergies, and choking hazards. They take reasonable precautions. But they aren't panicked about their children's well-being. This calmer outlook makes them better at both establishing boundaries and giving their kids some autonomy.

If you worry less about what people think of you, you can pick up an astonishing amount of information about them. You no longer leave conversations wondering what just happened. Other people's minds and motives are finally revealed.

Just because you're 40, you don't have to decide whether God exists...when you're already worrying that the National Security Agency is reading your emails, it's better not to know whether yet another entity is watching you.

The French believe that kids feel confident when they're able to do things for themselves, and do those things well. After children have learned to talk, adults don't praise them for saying just anything. They praise them for saying interesting things, and for speaking well.

There are no grown-ups....Everyone is winging it, some just do it more confidently.

There are no grown-ups. We suspect this when we are younger, but can confirm it only once we are the ones writing books and attending parent-teacher conferences. Everyone is winging it, some just do it more confidently.

There are no soul mates. Not in the traditional sense, at least. In my 20s someone told me that each person has not one but 30 soul mates walking the earth. (“Yes,” said a colleague, when I informed him of this, “and I’m trying to sleep with all of them.”) In fact, “soul mate” isn’t a pre-existing condition. It’s an earned title. They’re made over time.

To be a different kind of parent, you don't just need a different parenting philosophy. You need a very different view of what a child actually is.

When you're wondering whether she's his daughter or his girlfriend, she's his girlfriend.

Your first attempt will be terrible.... Remember that everything great you see started out as someone else's bad first draft..... Whenever someone sends me a manuscript and says, 'It just flowed out of me,' I usually think: Let it flow back into you for a while.

You will miss out on some near soul mates. This goes for friendships, too. There will be unforgettable people with whom you have shared an excellent evening or a few days. Now they live in Hong Kong, and you will never see them again. That’s just how life is.

Awakening is about introducing a child to sensory experiences, including tastes. It doesn't always require the parent's active involvement. It can come from staring at the sky, smelling dinner as it's being prepared, or playing alone on a blanket. It's a way of sharpening the child's senses and preparing him to distinguish between different experiences. It's the first step toward teaching him to be a cultivated adult who knows how to enjoy himself. Awakening is a kind of training for children in how to profiter - to soak up the pleasure and richness of the moment.

[French] Parents see it as their job to bring the child around to appreciating this [food]. They believe that just as they must teach a child how to sleep, how to wait, and how to say bonjour, they must teach her how to eat.

Mommy, I'm not going to have your American childhood, " she says. "I don't want to wake up at seven a.m. and make bracelets. I just don't. Accept it.

One day I have a revelation. ‘I think we’re actually quite compatible,’ I tell him. ‘You’re irritable, and I’m irritating.

Part of me just wants to force-feed these women some spoonfuls of fatty pâté. But another part of me is dying to know their secrets. Having kids who sleep well, wait and don’t whine surely helps them stay so calm. But there’s got to be more to it. Are they secretly struggling with anything? Where’s their belly fat? If this is all a façade, what’s behind it? Are French mothers really perfect? And if so, are they happy?

WARMING UP TO the crèche turned out to be easy. Warming up to the other mothers there isn’t. I’m aware that Anglo-American-style instant bonding between women doesn’t happen in France. I’ve heard that female friendships here start out slowly, and can take years to ramp up. (Though once you’re finally ‘in’ with a French woman, you’re supposedly stuck with her for life. Whereas your English-speaking insta-friends can drop you at any time.)

When I ask French parents what they most want for their children, they say things like "to feel comfortable in their own skin" and "to find their path in the world." They want their kids to develop their own tastes and opinions. In fact, French parents worry if their kids are too docile. They want them to have character. But they believe that children can achieve these goals only if they respect boundaries and have self-control. So alongside character, there has to be cadre.

You don’t say, “I’m sorry,”’ he says. ‘Getting injections, and experiencing pain, is part of life. There’s no reason to apologize for that.’ He seems to be channelling Rousseau, who said, ‘If by too much care you spare them every kind of discomfort, you are preparing great miseries for them.’ (I’m not sure what Rousseau thought about suppositories.)