French Children Don't Throw Food

by Druckerman, Pamela

  I want to learn the big eyes too. When our salads arrive, we practise. At first, I have trouble doing the owl without cracking up. But as with Frédérique in the park, when I finally hit the point of real conviction, I can feel the difference. Then, I don’t feel like laughing.

  Madeleine says that she’s not trying to frighten children into submission. She’s asserting her authority. But she says the big eyes work best when she has a strong connection with the child, and when there’s mutual respect. Madeleine says the most satisfying part of her job is developing ‘complicity’ with a child, as if they’re seeing the world the same way, and she can almost tell what the child is about to do. Getting to this point requires carefully observing him, talking with him, and trusting him with certain freedoms. And it means understanding that he’s a person too.

  Indeed, to build a relationship with a child in which the big eyes work, she says strictness must come with flexibility, including giving kids autonomy and choices. ‘I think you need to leave [kids] a bit of liberty, let their personalities show,’ she says.

  Madeleine doesn’t see any contradiction between having this strong reciprocal relationship and also being very firm. Her authority seems to come from inside the relationship with children, not from above it. She’s able to balance complicity and authority. ‘You must listen to the child, but it’s up to you to fix the limits,’ she says.

  The big eyes are famous in France. Bean mentioned getting them at the crèche. Many French adults still remember being on the receiving end of the big eyes and other, similar expressions.

  ‘She had this look,’ Clotilde Dusoulier, the Parisian food writer, says of her mother. With both her parents, ‘There was this tone of voice they used when all of a sudden they felt you had stepped over a line. They had a facial expression that was stern and annoyed and not happy. They would say, “No, you don’t say that.” You would feel chastised and a bit humiliated. It would pass.’

  What’s interesting to me is that Clotilde remembers les gros yeux – and the cadre the look enforced – very fondly. ‘She’s always been very clear on what was OK and what wasn’t,’ she says of her mother. ‘She managed to be both affectionate and have authority without ever raising her voice.’

  * * *

  Speaking of voice-raising, I seem to do it quite a lot. Shouting does sometimes succeed in getting the kids to brush their teeth, or wash their hands before dinner. But it takes a lot out of me, and creates an awful ambience. The louder I yell, the worse I feel about it afterwards.

  French parents do speak sharply to their kids. But they prefer surgical strikes to constant carpet-bombing. Shouting is saved for important moments, when they really want to make a point. When I shout at my kids in the park or at home when we have French friends over, my friends suddenly look alarmed, as if they think that there’s been a serious offence.

  Anglophone parents like me often view imposing authority in terms of discipline and punishment. French parents don’t talk much about these things. Instead, they talk about the éducation of kids. As the name suggests, this is about gradually teaching children what’s acceptable and what’s not.

  This difference makes the whole tone in France a lot more gentle. When Leo refuses to use his cutlery at dinner, I try to imagine that I’m teaching him to use a fork much like I’d teach him a letter of the alphabet. This makes it easier for me to be patient and calm. I no longer feel disrespected and angry when he doesn’t immediately comply. And with some of the stress off the situation, he’s more amiable about trying. I don’t yell, and dinner is more pleasant for everyone.

  It takes me a while to realize that French and Anglophone parents also use the word ‘strict’ quite differently. When British or American parents describe someone as ‘strict’, they typically mean that the person has an all-encompassing authority. The image of a stern, joyless schoolteacher comes to mind. I don’t know many American parents who use this word to describe themselves.

  When French parents describe themselves as ‘strict’ they mean something different. They mean that they’re very strict about a few things, and pretty relaxed about everything else. That’s the cadre model: a firm framework surrounding a lot of freedom.

  ‘We should leave the child as free as possible, without imposing useless rules on him,’ Françoise Dolto says in Les Étapes majeures de l’enfance (The Major Stages of Childhood). ‘We should leave him only the cadre of rules that are essential for his security. And he’ll understand from experience, when he tries to transgress, that they are essential, and that we don’t do anything just to bother him.’ In other words, being strict about a few key things makes parents seem more reasonable and companionable, and thus makes it more likely that children will obey.

  True to Dolto’s spirit, Parisian parents tell me that they don’t usually get worked up about minor bêtises – those small acts of naughtiness. They assume that these are just part of being a kid. ‘I think if every misbehaviour is treated on the same level, how will they know what’s important?’ my friend Esther tells me.

  But these same parents say that they immediately jump on certain types of infractions. Their zero-tolerance areas vary. But almost all the parents I know say that their main non-negotiable realm is ‘respect for others’. They’re referring to all those bonjours, au revoirs, and mercis, and also about speaking respectfully to parents or other adults.

  Physical aggression is another common no-go area. American kids often seem to get away with hitting their parents, even though they know they’re not supposed to. The French adults I know simply don’t tolerate this. Bean hits me once in front of our neighbour Pascal, a bohemian fiftyish bachelor. Pascal is normally an easy-going guy. But he immediately launches into a stern lecture about how ‘one does not do that’. I’m awed by his sudden conviction. I can see that Bean is awed too.

  At bedtime you can really see the French balance between being very strict about a few things and very relaxed about most others. A few parents tell me that at bedtime, kids must stay in their rooms. But within their rooms, the kids can do what they want.

  I introduce this concept to Bean, and she really likes it. She doesn’t focus on the fact that she’s confined to her room. Instead she keeps saying, proudly, ‘I can do whatever I want.’ She usually plays or reads for a while, then puts herself to bed.

  When the boys are about two, and they’re sleeping in beds rather than cots, I introduce this same principle. Since they’re sharing a room, things tend to get a bit more boisterous. I hear a lot of crashing Lego. Unless it sounds dangerous, however, I avoid going back in after I’ve said good night. Sometimes, if it’s getting late and they’re still going strong, I come in and tell them that it’s bedtime, and that I’m turning off the lights. They don’t seem to view this as a violation of the do-what-you-want principle. By that point they’re usually exhausted, and they climb into bed.

  To pry myself further out of my black-and-white way of looking at authority, I visit Daniel Marcelli. Marcelli is head of child psychiatry at a large hospital in Poitiers and the author of more than a dozen books, including a recent one called Il est permis d’obéir (It Is Permissible to Obey). The book is meant for parents. But typically, it’s also a meditation on the nature of authority. Marcelli develops his arguments in long expositions, quoting Hannah Arendt, and delighting in paradoxes.

  His favourite paradox is that in order for parents to have authority, they should say yes most of the time. ‘If you always forbid, you’re authoritarian,’ Marcelli tells me, over coffee and chocolates. He says the main point of parental authority is to authorize children to do things, not to block them.

  Marcelli gives the example of a child who wants an orange, or a glass of water, or to touch a computer. He says the current French ‘liberal education’ dictates that the child should ask before touching or taking these things. Marcelli approves of this asking, but he says the parents’ response should almost always be ‘yes’.

  Parents ‘should onl
y forbid him every once in a while … because [something is] fragile or dangerous. But fundamentally, [the parent’s job] is to teach the child to ask before taking.’

  Marcelli says that embedded in this dynamic is a longer-term goal, with its own paradox: if all is done right, the child will eventually reach a point where he can choose to disobey too.

  ‘The sign of a successful education is to teach a child to obey until he can freely authorize himself to disobey from time to time. Because how can one learn to disobey certain orders if one has not learned to obey?’

  ‘Submission demeans,’ Marcelli explains, ‘whereas obedience allows a child to grow up.’ (He also says that children should watch a bit of television, so they have a shared culture with other kids.)

  To follow Marcelli’s whole argument about authority, it would help to have been raised in France, where philosophy is taught in high school. What I do understand is that part of the delight of building such a firm cadre for kids is that they can sometimes leave the cadre, and it will remain intact.

  Marcelli is also echoing another point I’ve heard a lot in France: without limits, kids will be consumed by their own desires. (‘By nature, a human being knows no limits,’ Marcelli tells me.) French parents stress the cadre because they know that, without boundaries, children will be overpowered by their own impulses. The cadre helps to contain all this inner turmoil, and calm it down.

  That could explain why my children are practically the only ones having tantrums in the park in Paris. A tantrum happens when a child is overwhelmed by his own desires, and doesn’t know how to stop himself. The other kids are used to hearing non, and having to accept it. Mine aren’t. My ‘no’ feels contingent and weak to them. It doesn’t stop the chain of wanting.

  Marcelli says that kids with a cadre can absolutely be creative and ‘awakened’ – a state that French parents also describe as ‘blossoming’. The French ideal is to promote the child’s blossoming within the cadre. He says a small minority of French parents think that blossoming is the only important thing, and don’t build any cadre for them. It’s pretty clear how Marcelli feels about this latter group. Their children, he says, ‘don’t do well at all, and despair in every sense’.

  I’m quite taken with this new view. From now on I’m determined to be authoritative but not authoritarian. When I’m putting Bean to bed one evening, I actually mention to her that I know she needs to do bêtises sometimes. She looks relieved. It’s a moment of complicity.

  ‘Can you tell that to Daddy?’ she asks.

  Bean, who after all spends her days in a French school, has a better grasp of discipline than I do. One morning I’m in the lobby of our apartment building, and I’m late. I need the boys to get into the pram, so I can rush Bean to school and then take the boys to crèche. Simon is away.

  But the boys refuse to get into their double pram. They want to walk, which will take even longer. What’s more, we’re in the courtyard of our building, so the neighbours can hear and even watch this whole exchange. I summon whatever pre-coffee authority I can muster, and insist that they get in. This has no effect.

  Bean has been watching too. She believes that I should be able to galvanize two little boys.

  ‘Just say “One, two, three,”’ she says, with considerable irritation. Apparently, this is what her teachers say when they want an uncooperative child to comply.

  Saying ‘One, two, three’ isn’t rocket science. It certainly happens in Britain and America too. But the logic behind it is very French. ‘This gives him some time, and it’s respectful to the child,’ Daniel Marcelli says.1 He says the child should be allowed to play an active role in obeying, which requires giving him time to respond.

  In It Is Permissible to Obey, Marcelli gives the example of a child who seizes a sharp knife. ‘His mother looks at him and says, her face “cold”, her tone firm and neutral, her eyebrows lightly furrowed: “Put that down!”’ In this example, the child looks at his mother but doesn’t move. Fifteen seconds later, his mother adds, in a firmer tone, ‘You put it down right away,’ and then ten seconds later, ‘Do you understand?’

  In Marcelli’s telling, the little boy then puts the knife on the table. ‘The mother’s face relaxes, her voice becomes sweeter, and she says to him, “That’s good.” Then she explains to him that it’s dangerous and that you can cut yourself with a knife.’

  Marcelli notes that although the child was obedient in the end, he was also an active participant. There was reciprocal respect. ‘The child has obeyed, his mother thanks him but not excessively, her child recognizes her authority … For this to happen, there must be words, time, patience, and reciprocal recognition. If his mother had rushed over to him and snatched the knife from his hands, he wouldn’t have understood much of anything.’

  It’s hard to strike this balance between being the boss but also listening to a child and respecting him. One afternoon, as I’m getting Joey dressed to leave the crèche, he suddenly collapses in tears. I’m all charged up in my new ‘It’s me who decides’ mode. I have the fervour of a convert. I decide that this is like the incident with Adrien on the doctor’s scales: I’m going to force him to get dressed.

  But Fatima, his favourite carer at the crèche, hears the ruckus and comes into the changing room, concerned. She takes the opposite tack from me. Joey may throw fits all the time at home, but at the crèche it’s quite unusual. Fatima leans into Joey, and starts stroking his forehead.

  ‘What is it?’ she keeps asking him gently. She views this tantrum not as some abstract, inevitable expression of the terrible twos, but as communication from a very small, rational being.

  After a minute or two, Joey calms down enough to explain – through words and gestures – that he wants his hat from his locker. That’s what this whole scene has been about (I think he’d tried to grab it earlier). Fatima takes Joey down from the changing table, then watches as he goes to the locker, opens it and takes out the hat. After that, he’s sage and ready to go.

  Fatima isn’t a pushover. She has a lot of authority with the kids. She didn’t think that just because she patiently listened to Joey, she was giving in to him. What she did was to calm him down, then give him a chance to express what he wanted.

  Unfortunately, there are endless scenarios, and no one rule about what to do in every case. The French have a whole bunch of contradictory principles, and few hard-and-fast rules. Sometimes you listen carefully to your kid. And sometimes you just put him on the scales. It’s about setting limits, but also about observing your child and building complicity, and then adapting to what the situation requires.

  For some parents, all this probably becomes automatic. But for now, I wonder if this balance will ever come naturally to me. It feels like the difference between trying to learn salsa dancing as a thirty-year-old, and growing up dancing salsa as a child with your dad. I’m still counting steps, and stepping on toes.

  In some Anglophone homes I’ve visited, it’s not uncommon for a child to be sent to his room during practically every meal. Whereas in France, there are lots of small reminders about how to behave, but being puni is a big deal.

  Often, parents send the punished child to his room, or to a corner. Sometimes, they spank him. I’ve only seen French kids spanked in public a few times, though friends of mine in Paris say they see it more frequently. At a staging of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the actress playing mummy bear asks the audience what should happen to the baby bear, who’s been acting up.

  ‘La fessée!’ – a spanking – the crowd of little kids shouts in unison. In a national poll,2 19 per cent of French parents said they spank their kids ‘from time to time’; 46 per cent said they spank ‘rarely’ and 2 per cent said they spank ‘often’.’ Another 33 per cent said they never spank their kids.3

  In the past, ‘la fessée’ probably played a bigger role in French child-rearing and in enforcing adults’ authority. But the tide is turning. All the French parenting experts I read about oppose it.
4 Instead of spanking, they recommend that parents become adept at saying no. Like Marcelli, they say that ‘no’ should be used sparingly. But once uttered, it must be definitive.

  This idea isn’t new. In fact, it comes all the way from Rousseau. ‘Give willingly, refuse unwillingly,’ he writes in Émile. ‘But let your refusal be irrevocable. Let no entreaties move you; let your “no”, once uttered, be a wall of brass, against which the child may exhaust his strength some five or six times, but in the end he will try no more to overthrow it. Thus you will make him patient, equable, calm and resigned, even when he does not get all he wants.’

  In addition to the rapid-movement gene, Leo has also been born with the subversive gene.

  ‘I want water,’ he announces at dinner one night.

  ‘What’s the magic word?’ I ask sweetly.

  ‘Water!’ he says, smirking. (Strangely, Leo – who looks the most like Simon – speaks with a slight British accent. Joey and Bean both sound American).

  Building a cadre for your kids is a lot of work. In the early years, it requires quite a lot of repetition and attention. But once it’s in place, it makes life much easier and calmer (or so it seems). In moments of desperation I start telling my kids, in French, ‘C’est moi qui décide’ – it’s me who decides. Just uttering this sentence is strangely fortifying. My back stiffens a bit when I say it.

  The French way also requires a paradigm shift. I’m so used to believing that everything revolves around the kids. Being more ‘French’ means moving the centre of gravity away from them, and letting my own needs spread out a bit too.

  Feeling like I have some control also makes having three little kids a lot more manageable. When Simon is away one spring weekend, I let the kids drag carpets and blankets out on to our balcony and create a kind of Moroccan lounge. I bring them hot chocolate, and they sit around sipping it.