JOLABOKAFLOD—-BRINGING UP BÉBÉ. Mary Jane’s first Christmas book is BRINGING UP BÉBÉ by Pamela Druckerman. The book is about how French children are raised differently from American children. The cover blurb says: The “French children sleep through the night at two or three months old.They eat braised leeks. Their parents sip coffee while the kids play by themselves….Why?”
Mary Jane has read aloud some things she liked in the book. The French think of newborns as rational. A baby understands that they can’t keep their mother awake at night because they understand that she has to go to work the next morning. This dialogue follows in the book:
“The baby understands that?”
“Of course they understand that.”
“How can they understand that?
“Because babies understand everything ”
And, apparently, they are born understanding French, at least if you
pronounce it properly. After all, they’ve just come down from heaven,
where everyone’s accent is parfait.