Of all the things Europeans living in the US like to look down on – the politics, the portion sizes, the lack of socialised public healthcare – the greatest and most long-standing is probably American parenting. It starts before birth, with a level of prenatal fussing that even the most neurotic Brit would find oppressive, from whence it’s a quick ride through every shade of hand-wringing to this: more than once in New York I have heard a mother admonish her child mid-tantrum with the words, “You’re making Mommy feel bad.”
One manifestation of this approach is the parenting consultant. Since there is almost nothing in this city you can’t outsource to someone else, consultants naturally exist for everything from lactation to sleep, food, speech, clothing, crying and movement. When my children were 11 months old, I remarked to an acquaintance that they weren’t yet walking, causing her to widen her eyes, tear a page from her notebook and advise me to take them forthwith to her movement guy - “a good paediatric physiotherapist”.
Still, it is impossible to live in a country for more than a few years and not feel one’s compass readjusting. After reading one too many Facebook scare stories about Ikea drawers falling on toddlers, I bit the bullet last week and called a safety consultant to come and fix up my apartment.
Yes, I know; why not just take a handful of $100 bills and set fire to them in the street? A friend from upstate New York once paid a man to safety-proof her house and only came to her senses when he concluded that she needed to “move the staircase” and quoted her $5,000 for the job.
It was, therefore, with some resentment that I opened the door to a man I was sure would, within the hour, be advising me to rip out my bath and build a wall around the oven. But then he opened his mouth and I burst out laughing. French! If the American parent of popular imagination spends her time duct-taping cotton wool around little Johnny, the French equivalent is letting Jean-Jacques play on the motorway, throwing him bits of unpasteurised cheese when he’s hungry.
I asked Monsieur if the job he did existed in Paris and he looked sad. No, he said; whenever he went home they mocked him for pandering to American neuroses. When he pointed out to his brother-in-law that had he fixed the sharp corners on his coffee table his son wouldn’t have ripped open his forehead when he tripped, the man shrugged and said, “But he won’t do it again.” (He did do it again, said the consultant; a few weeks later.) In spite of this professional caution, he was still, at the end of the day, French, and after fixing my bookcases and TV to the wall, suggested I leave the door to the play-yard open, so the babies could crawl out and explore. “Falling is learning,” he said, wisdom so soothing it should have its own branch of consultancy.
Colorado dreaming
I flew to Colorado for a night last week, which meant that, for one 24-hour period, I was more in the air than on the ground. That kind of turnaround is grim, but this trip came after a fortnight of back-to-back illness in my household such that for a few days there wasn’t a clean sheet or pair of pyjamas in the house. It’s a measure of sleep deprivation when eight hours on United feels like a spa break. Happiness really is drinking coffee while no one throws up on you.
Hey, Mr Tambourine Git
This has been a bad week for caving in to impulses. After holding out for a year, I finally bought a “lifetime membership” at the baby gym, cheaper than individual classes but still eye-wateringly overpriced given what it is – a soft play area presided over by some git with a tambourine. To get our money’s worth I will be insisting my children attend once weekly until they’re at least 45. If it screws them up – there’s a guy for that.
