Thread by @ClaireBerlinski

I usually avoid commenting on American child-rearing strategies because the rejoinder is obvious and entirely correct: "Claire, go raise a child yourself before you lecture us." But this article seems dead-accurate to me. theatlantic.com/family/archive…

I sure see a lot of American parents making themselves needlessly miserable--and their kids unbearable--by using the strategies she discusses. It's true and it's obvious, if you've lived elsewhere and seen how parents in other countries do it, that it doesn't have to be this way.

I don't think I've ever seen a French kid have a tantrum in public. I watch what the parents here do, and I'm not sure I fully understand it, but it looks pretty much like what she describes. They're much more low-energy and low-involvement.

Kids are supposed to adapt to the adult world, not vice-versa. And the way Americans create whole spaces exclusively for kids but inherently loathsome to adults has always struck me as a huge mistake. Most other countries don't do this.

It keeps kids from learning how to function, socially, among adults, and worse, it infantilizes adults--who become childlike in their tastes and affect. You can create public spaces that are appealing to kids and adults alike.

The Paris plage, for example: city-journal.org/html/paris-lif…. These are wonderful additions to the social fabric. But spaces designed *only* to appeal to children are exhausting for parents: Why would parents want to suffer through the time they spend with their kids?

Why is this expected of American parents?

Or worse, they're appealing to the adults, but only because they've so long given themselves over to pleasing the kids that they've regressed to childhood and lost contact with adult sensibilities.

(Adults who are drawn to marketing like this, for example, have been over-immersed in spaces designed for children.)

I'll now cease pronouncing judgment upon the way other people raise their kids; I know nothing's less welcome than lessons on child-rearing from someone who's never done it. I only point this out in case you're making yourself miserable with guilt--

--thinking that you *must* keep your kids praised and entertained. Most people, the world around, see no reason to feel they have to praise and entertain their kids around the clock. The kids turn out fine. Probably better, frankly. All that praise turns them into little beasts.