French Children Don't Throw Food

by Druckerman, Pamela

  As soon as Bean grasps the concept – all these people are giving her sweets – she begins to eat them. She doesn’t just eat a few sweets; she tries to eat all the sweets in her bag. She sits in a corner of the room stuffing pink, yellow and green gooey masses into her mouth. I have to intervene to slow her down.

  It occurs to me then that I’ve taken the wrong approach to sweets. Before this Halloween, Bean had rarely eaten refined sugar. To my knowledge, she hadn’t had a single gummy bear. Like the parsley parents, I’d tried to pretend that sweets didn’t exist.

  I’ve watched other Anglophone parents agonize about giving their kids any sugar at all. One afternoon a British mother I know tells me her little girl can’t have a cookie although all the other kids are having them, explaining, ‘She doesn’t need to know about that.’ Another mum I know – a psychologist – looked to be in agony over whether to let her eighteen-month-old have an iced lolly, even though it was at the end of a hot summer day and all our kids were playing outside. (She finally conceded.) I once saw an American couple with three advanced degrees between them convene a nervous meeting over whether their four-year-old can have a lollipop.

  But refined sugar does exist. And French parents know it. They don’t try to eliminate all sweets from their children’s diets. Rather, they fit sweets inside the cadre. For a French kid, sweets have their place, and are a regular enough part of their lives that they don’t gorge like freed prisoners the moment they get their hands on any. Mostly, children seem to eat them at birthday parties, special times at school, and as a special treat. At these occasions, they’re usually free to eat all they want. When I try to limit the boys’ intake of candy and chocolate cake at the crèche’s Christmas party, one of their caregivers intervenes. She tells me I should just let them enjoy the party and be free. I think of my skinny friend Virginie, who pays strict attention to what she eats on weekdays, then eats whatever she wants on weekends. Kids, too, need moments when the regular rules don’t apply.

  But parents decide when these moments are. When I drop Bean off at a birthday party for Abigail, a little girl in our building, she’s the first guest to arrive (we haven’t yet figured out that you’re not supposed to be punctual for kids’ birthdays). Abigail’s mum has just set out plates of cookies and sweets on a table. Abigail asks her mum if she can have some of the sweets. Her mum says non, and explains that it isn’t yet time to eat them. Abigail looks longingly at the candy, then runs off with Bean to play in another room.

  Chocolate has a more regular place in the lives of French kids. French parents talk about chocolate as if it’s just another food group, albeit one to eat in moderation. When Fanny describes what Lucie eats in a typical day, the menu includes cookies or a piece of cake. ‘And obviously she’ll want chocolate in there somewhere,’ Fanny says.

  Hélène gives her kids hot chocolate when it’s cold outside. She serves it for breakfast, along with a hunk of baguette, or makes it their afternoon goûter, along with some cookies. My kids love reading books about T’choupi, a French children’s book character modelled on a penguin. When he’s sick, his mum lets him stay home and drink hot chocolate. I take my kids to see a performance of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, at a theatre near our house. The bears don’t eat oatmeal, they eat bouillie au chocolat (hot chocolate thickened with flour).

  ‘It’s a compensation for going to school, and I guess it gives them some energy,’ explains Denise, the medical ethicist. She shuns McDonald’s, and makes her daughters’ dinner from scratch each night. But she gives each girl a bar of chocolate for breakfast, along with some bread and a bit of fruit.

  French kids don’t get a huge amount of chocolate – it’s a small bar, or a drink’s worth, or a strip on a pain au chocolat. They eat it happily, but don’t expect a second helping. But chocolate is a nutritional fixture for them, rather than a forbidden treat. Bean once comes home from the summer camp at her school with a chocolate sandwich: a baguette with a bar of chocolate inside. I’m so surprised I take a picture of it. (I later learn that the chocolate sandwich – usually made with dark chocolate – is a classic French goûter.)

  With sweets, too, the cadre is key. French parents aren’t afraid of sugary foods. Everything, even cake and chocolate, has its place. In general, French parents will serve cake or cookies at lunch, or at the goûter. But they don’t give kids chocolate or rich desserts with dinner. ‘What you eat in the evening just stays with you for years,’ Fanny explains.

  For dessert with dinner, Fanny typically serves fresh fruit or a fruit compote – those ubiquitous little tubs of apple sauce with other puréed fruits mixed in (these come with or without added sugar). There’s a ‘compotes’ section in French supermarkets. Fanny says she also buys all different types of plain yogurt, and then gets jams for Lucie to mix in.

  As in most realms, French parents aim at mealtimes to give kids both firm boundaries and freedom within those boundaries. ‘It’s things like sitting at the table and tasting everything,’ Fanny explains. ‘I’m not forcing her to finish, just to taste everything and sit with us.’

  I’m not sure exactly when I started serving my kids meals in courses. But I now do it at every meal. It’s a stroke of French genius. This starts with breakfast. When the kids sit down, I put plates of cut-up fruit on the table. They nibble on this while I’m getting their toast or cereal ready. They can have juice at breakfast, but they know that for lunch and dinner we drink water. Even the union organizer doesn’t complain about that. We talk about how clean water makes us feel.

  At lunch and dinner I serve vegetables first, when the kids are hungriest. We don’t move on to the main course until they at least make a dent in the starter. Usually they finish it. Except when I introduce an entirely new dish, I rarely have to resort to the tasting rule. If Leo won’t eat a food the first time I serve it, he’ll usually agree to at least smell it, and he’ll take a nibble soon after that.

  Bean sometimes exploits the letter of the rule by eating a single piece of courgette, and then insisting that she has fulfilled her obligation. She recently declared that she will taste everything ‘except salad’, by which she means the actual green lettuce leaves. But for the most part, she quite likes the starters we serve. These include sliced avocado, tomato in vinaigrette, or steamed broccoli with a little soy sauce. We all have a good chuckle when I serve carottes rapées – shredded carrots in vinagrette – and try to pronounce it.

  My kids come to the table hungry because, except for the goûter, they don’t snack. It helps that other kids around them aren’t snacking either. But even so, getting to this point required a steely will. I simply don’t cave in to demands for a filling piece of bread or a whole banana between meals. And as the kids have got older, they’ve mostly stopped asking. If they do, I just say, ‘No, you’re having dinner in thirty minutes.’ Unless they’re very tired, they’re usually fine with that. I feel a swell of accomplishment when I’m in the supermarket with Leo and he points to a box of cookies and says ‘goûter’.

  I try not to be too fanatical about this (or as Simon describes it, ‘more French than the French’). When I’m cooking I occasionally give the kids a little preview of dinner – a piece of tomato or a few chickpeas. When I’m introducing a new ingredient, like pine nuts, I’ll offer them a few bites while I’m cooking, to get them in the mood. Obviously they drink water whenever they want.

  Sometimes keeping my kids in the food cadre feels like a lot of work. Especially when Simon is away, I’m often tempted to skip the starter, plop a bowl of pasta in front of them and call it dinner. When I occasionally do this, they’re quite happy to gobble it down. There’s certainly no clamouring for salad and vegetables.

  But usually the kids don’t have a choice. Like a French mum, I’ve accepted that it’s my duty to teach them to like a variety of tastes, and to eat meals that are équilibrés. (Though my fanaticism about this is entirely American.) Also like a French mum, I try to keep the balance of the whole day’s
menu in my head. We mostly stick to the French formula of large protein-heavy lunches and lighter carbohydrate-driven dinners, though always with vegetables. The kids do eat a lot of pasta, though I try to vary the shape and the sauce. Whenever I have time, I make a big pot of soup for dinner (though I can’t bring myself to purée it), and serve it with rice or bread.

  It’s no surprise that the kids find the food more appetizing when the ingredients are fresh, and it looks good. I consider the balance of colours on their plate, and occasionally slip in some slices of tomato or avocado if dinner looks monotone. We have a collection of colourful melamine plates. But for dinner I use white plates, which makes the colours of the food ‘pop’, and signals to the kids that we’re having a grown-up meal.

  I try to let them help themselves as much as possible. Beginning when the boys were quite young, I passed around a bowl of grated Parmesan on pasta nights and let them sprinkle it on all by themselves. They get to put a spoonful of sugar in their hot chocolates and occasionally in their yogurts.

  Bean frequently asks for a slice of Camembert, or a hunk of whatever cheese we’ve got, at the end of the meal. Except for special occasions, we don’t do cake or ice cream at night. I still can’t bring myself to serve them chocolate sandwiches.

  It’s taken a while to make all this second nature. It helps that the boys in particular really like to eat. One of their teachers at the crèche calls them gourmands, which is a polite way of saying that they eat a lot. She says their favourite word is ‘encore’ – more. They’ve developed the annoying habit, possibly learned at the crèche, of holding up their plates at the end of the meal, to show that they’ve finished. Whatever sauce or liquid is left spills on to the table (I think at the crèche they’ve already mopped up the liquid with slices of baguette).

  Sweets are no longer non grata in our house. Now that we offer them in moderation, Bean doesn’t treat each sweet as if it’s her last. When it’s really cold out, I make the kids hot chocolate in the morning. I serve it with yesterday’s baguette, softened slightly in the microwave, and slices of apple in a little serving bowl, which the kids dip in their drinks. It feels like a very French breakfast.

  Chocolat chaud à la Hélène

  (makes about 6 cups)

  1 litre half-fat milk

  1–2 tsp cocoa powder

  sugar to taste

  In a saucepan, mix one heaped teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder with a small splash of cold or room-temperature milk. Mash the milk and powder together until they form a thick paste. Add the rest of the milk and mix. (The chocolate should spread evenly into the milk.) Cook on medium heat until the milk begins to boil. Allow the hot chocolate to cool, skim off any skin that has formed, then pour it into mugs with spoons inside. Let kids add their own sugar at the table.

  Quick breakfast version

  In a large mug, make a paste with 1 teaspoon cocoa powder and a small splash of milk. Fill the mug with milk and mix. Heat the mug in the microwave for two minutes, or until very hot. Mix in a teaspoon of sugar. Pour a bit of this hot cocoa concentrate into several mugs. Add cold or room-temperature milk to each mug. Serve with a crusty baguette, or any toasted bread.

  13

  It’s Me Who Decides

  LEO, THE SWARTHY twin, does everything quickly. I don’t mean that he’s gifted. I mean that he moves at twice the speed of ordinary humans. By age two, he’s developed a runner’s physique from dashing from room to room. He even speaks quickly. As Bean’s birthday approaches, he begins singing ‘Happybirthdaytoya!’ in a high-pitched squeak; the whole song is over in a few seconds.

  It’s very hard to wrestle with this little tornado. Already, he can practically outrun me. When I go to the park with him, I’m in constant motion too. He seems to regard the gates around play areas as an invitation to leave.

  One of the most impressive parts of French parenting – and perhaps the toughest one to master – is authority. Many French parents I meet have an easy, calm manner with their children that I can only envy. Their kids actually listen to them. French children aren’t constantly dashing off, talking back or engaging in prolonged negotiations. But how exactly do French parents pull this off? And how can I acquire this magical authority too?

  One Sunday morning, my neighbour Frédérique witnesses me trying to cope with Leo when we take our kids to the park. Frédérique is a travel agent from Burgundy. She’s in her mid-forties, with a raspy smoker’s voice and a no-nonsense manner. After years of paperwork she adopted Tina, a beautiful red-headed three-year-old, from a Russian orphanage. At the time of our outing, she’s been a mother for all of three months.

  But already Frédérique is teaching me about éducation. Just by virtue of being French, she has a whole different vision of what’s possible and pas possible. This becomes clear in the sandbox at the park. Frédérique and I are sitting on the perimeter of the sandbox, trying to talk. But Leo keeps dashing outside the fence surrounding the sandbox. Each time he does this, I get up to chase him, scold him and drag him back while he screams. It’s irritating and exhausting.

  At first, Frédérique watches this little ritual in silence. Then, without any condescension, she says that if I’m running after Leo all the time, we won’t be able to indulge in the small pleasure of sitting and chatting for a few minutes.

  ‘That’s true,’ I say. ‘But what can I do?’

  Frédérique says I should be more stern with Leo, so he knows that it’s not OK to leave the sandbox. ‘Otherwise it doesn’t work,’ she says. In my mind, spending the afternoon chasing Leo is inevitable. In her mind, it’s pas possible.

  Frédérique’s strategy doesn’t seem to hold out much promise for me. I point out that I’ve been telling Leo to stop leaving the sandbox for the last twenty minutes. Frédérique smiles. She says I need to make my ‘no’ stronger, and to really believe in it.

  The next time Leo tries to run outside the gate, I say ‘no’ more sharply than usual. He leaves anyway. I follow and drag him back.

  ‘You see?’ I say to Frédérique. ‘It’s not possible.’

  Frédérique smiles again, and says I need to make my ‘no’ more convincing. What I lack, she says, is the belief that he’s really going to listen. She tells me not to shout, but rather to speak with more conviction.

  I’m scared that I’ll terrify him.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Frédérique says, calmly urging me on.

  Leo doesn’t listen the next time either. But I can feel that my ‘no’s’ are coming from a more convincing place. They’re not louder, but they’re more self-assured. I feel like I’m impersonating a different sort of parent.

  By the fourth try, when I’m finally brimming with conviction, Leo approaches the gate but – miraculously – doesn’t open it. He looks back and eyes me warily. I widen my eyes and try to emit disapproval.

  After about ten minutes, Leo stops trying to leave altogether. He seems to forget about the gate, and just plays in the sandbox with Tina, Joey and Bean. Soon Frédérique and I are chatting, with our legs stretched out in front of us.

  I’m shocked that Leo suddenly views me as an authority figure.

  ‘See that,’ Frédérique says, not gloating. ‘It was your tone of voice.’

  She points out that Leo doesn’t appear to be traumatized. For the moment – and possibly for the first time ever – he actually seems like a French child. With all three kids suddenly sage at once, I can feel my shoulders falling a bit. It’s an experience I’ve never really had in the park before. Maybe this is what it’s like to be a French mother?

  I feel relaxed, but also foolish. If it’s that easy, why haven’t I been doing this for the last four and a half years? Saying no isn’t exactly a cutting-edge parenting technique. What’s new is Frédérique’s coaching me to drop my ambivalence and to be certain about my own authority. What she tells me springs from her own upbringing and deepest beliefs. It comes out sounding like common sense.

  Frédérique has the same certaint
y that what’s most pleasant for us parents – being able to have a relaxing chat at the park, while the kids play – is also best for the children. This seems to be true. As we’re chatting, it becomes clear that Leo is a lot less stressed than he was half an hour earlier. Instead of a constant cycle of escape and reimprisonment, he’s playing happily with the other kids.

  I’m ready to bottle my new technique – the fully felt ‘no’ – and sell it off the back of a wagon. But Frédérique warns me that there’s no magic elixir for making kids respect your authority. It’s always a work in progress. ‘There are no fixed rules,’ she says. ‘You have to keep changing what you do.’

  That’s unfortunate. So what else explains why French parents like Frédérique have so much authority with their kids? How exactly do they summon this authority, day after day, dinner after dinner? And how can I get some more of it?

  A French colleague of mine says that if I’m interested in authority, I must speak to her cousin Dominique. She says that Dominique, a French singer who’s raising three kids in New York, is an unofficial expert in the differences between French and American parents.

  Dominique, forty-three, looks like the heroine of a nouvelle vague film. She has dark hair, delicate features and an intense, gazelle-like gaze. If I were thinner, better looking and could sing, I’d say that she and I were living mirror-image lives: she’s a Parisian who’s raising her children in New York. I’m an ex-New Yorker who’s raising kids in Paris. Living in France has made me calmer and less neurotic, whereas despite Dominique’s sultry good looks she has adopted the bubbly self-analysis that comes from living in Manhattan. She speaks enthusiastic French-accented English, peppered with ‘like’ and ‘oh my God’.