French Twist

by Catherine Crawford

  Unfortunately, I was not always able to find a French-inspired solution to the attitudinal shortcomings of my kids, because many of their behaviors simply don’t exist in the same way in France. The real trick—listen carefully, all you parents who have yet to spawn or who have very small children—is to create the proper relationship with your children from the very beginning. Remember, YOU ARE THE CHIEF. When I consider my own parenting trajectory, the main reason I wasn’t able to discipline my kids effectively is that I did not want to inhibit their wonderful, budding personalities. I didn’t want to tread on their individualism. This strikes me as a very American approach, and there is much merit to it, but perhaps not to the extremes that we have taken it. In France, everyone in the family has a job. The parent’s role is to be the chief, and the children have the job of obeying their leader. French children are raised with this in mind, so there is much less debate and resistance. As in the previous chapter, when my pregnant friend was chastised for not taking her rightful place at the front of the line—“It’s the law!”—and fouling up the rules, French kids know that their business involves obeying adults. Ever since this was explained to me, I have been dropping it on my own daughters. It is kind of fun to say things like, “You will get in the car now and put on your seat belt, because I am the chief and I said so.”

  The crazy thing? It works. Initially I was afraid that they would become resentful of my new assertions of power and tightened discipline, but that was not the case. They were so used to debating and arguing about everything—because I had raised them to think that their opinion on everything was important—that they seemed almost relieved to have a real chief take charge.

  I like being the chief, but to do it effectively I have had to become more strict, which is the hardest part for me. I have never been much good at saying “no” to my kids, and I have always gravitated to those in the parenting world who talk and write about “the power of yes” and how important it is to respect children and their feelings. With two daughters, I’ve long held visions of the three of us as a happy little clique when they grow up, laughing at a café and swapping stories. Like a scene from a Nora Ephron movie. Cheesy, I know, but, hey, it sounds nice. I just really want them to like me. Now, French moms are pretty firm, yet from what I have seen they more often appear to have wonderful relationships with their adult daughters. Possibly this is because they have maintained some dignity in the eyes of their kids by not always seeming desperate for acceptance. One French mom broke it down for me in simple terms: “Your job is not to be their friend. That does not work with children. You need to be their mom and teach them well. I would love to spend my day holding my child, but I know that is not good for him.” I have spent entire days holding my Daphne, congratulating myself that, at the very least, I was reducing the risk of her becoming a serial killer. Of course, I had read The Attachment Parenting Book, by Dr. William Sears, so avoiding raising murderesses was the very least I was going for—I was promised kids who would be more secure and smarter than those whose heartless parents had not elected to wear them. They would be easy to discipline, respectful, and a whole bunch of other wonderful qualities. Perhaps there’s another reason for it, but the endless attention and energy that I bestowed upon my girls as babies and toddlers ultimately produced clingy and demanding kids (as well as one strung-out mom). Practically every French mother that I have encountered insists that enforcing discipline and cultivating self-restraint in children is the truest expression of love.

  Most of the French parents I spoke with divulged that they read few if any books on parenting. However, the author that many of them turned to is a doctor and psychoanalyst named Françoise Dolto. Dolto, a bit of a brainiac who worked with Jacques Lacan, preached the importance of children having separate lives from their parents. Amen, sister! Recently my husband’s cousin arrived from out of town, and the only thing I wanted was a little separation from my kids so that I could catch up with the in-laws. But, alas, darling Daphne was in a full-on French relapse, and it wasn’t until after I took her to bed that any of the adults could meaningfully converse. Sadly, I was relegated to the bedtime ritual, so I missed the heart of the homecoming. Too many American kids—mine included, no doubt—are brought up thinking that their every utterance is precious and worthy of an audience. As one French father explained to me, “Where I am from, we refer to the child whose parents hang there on everything it says and does as l’enfant roi. I think it is like your spoiled brat, maybe, but not so bad. It is not the child’s fault that the parents treat it like a king.” I wanted to give my daughters confidence and a healthy sense of self-worth by validating their achievements, but now they thought that running around the dining room table with three stuffed animals in their shirts was fascinating to everyone. I had ended up with a couple of showboats who didn’t know how to sit and participate in a discussion without being the center of it. I love them dearly, but there is truly nothing amazing about putting a couple of Stuffies down one’s front, and I want my kids to know it. Perhaps in the future, if this developed into a more compelling performance piece (with, like, the Coen brothers directing and a cameo from Jeff Bridges), then we’d have something. However, from the beginning, my daughters have known only the approval and attention of grown-ups, and it is hard for everyone involved to just shut off the spigot. We are certainly working on it and making strides—leaps, really, with Oona.

  Sadly, I can’t say the same for all of my friends. I shudder at the memory of a summertime soirée we attended one year at our dear friend Bonnie’s house on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Bella, Bonnie’s nearly-eight-year-old daughter, had a vision for a parlor game, so before the party, mother and daughter sent emails to the four families attending, asking us all to bring a special object and be prepared to tell a story about it. Already this seemed rather un-French to me, but, for starters, we don’t live in France, so my husband and I complied. The party was lovely, made even lovelier by Bonnie’s truly breathtaking views of the Hudson River from her twenty-eighth-floor terrace. In the middle of a perfect moment, with all of the adults sipping wine alfresco and every child playing happily indoors, Bella came out and announced that she wanted her game to begin now. Her timing couldn’t have been worse, as not one adult on that terrace wanted to do anything but continue to bask in the beautiful skyline, sip their sauvignon blanc, and carry on with the conversation. Bonnie tried to keep Bella at bay, first by telling her that we’d do it in twenty minutes. Screams. Then she said we’d start right after the grown-ups had finished their wine. More screams. Multiple attempts to stall the game degenerated into parental begging, yet everything was futile, and finally Bonnie relented. “Okay, honey, go collect the kids and bring them out here and we’ll play.” But that didn’t go over well either, as Bella was adamant that her game take place in the living room. There trudged eight parents, diligently but begrudgingly leaving their outdoor paradise to go sit in a stuffy living room and indulge a child. There were further problems, which resulted in side conferences between Bonnie and Bella, while all of the guests sat waiting in an awkward, silent circle in the living room.

  The whole time I was wondering what the French would make of the scene, although I had a pretty good idea. I wanted so badly for Bonnie to have the power to say, “Not now, Bella. I will tell you when the time is right.” She definitely needed to summon her inner chief. Without a doubt, that would have been dicey at first, especially when dealing with a child who had been in charge for so long. Daphne, admittedly, is a work in progress, but after enacting a little tough love with Oona, as well as frequently explaining to her in nice terms—I am still American, after all—that I cannot look upon her 24/7, or even 12/7, nor do I want her to demand the attention of other grown-ups, I’ve seen a huge difference. She can hang! When we have evening guests, I’ve begun letting the girls stay up later and participate, as long as they can conduct themselves as part of the group and not insist on becoming the center of the scene. When they reg
ress, they are sent to bed. Daphne still doesn’t make it very long before too many demands earn her a walk down the long, lonesome hallway toward her bed, but her older sister has gotten to the point where she can stay up until she grows weary and asks to go to sleep.

  Here’s a little smidge from an email response about kids at social functions that I received from an expat who has lived on the west coast of France for decades. You might remember her from the previous chapter:

  Children are never left out of anything. There are never dinner parties or festivities like weddings where children are not invited. They sit at the table with the grown-ups and eat the grown-up food with a knife and fork (soup, salad, all kinds of stinky cheese …) and they enjoy it! Adults treat them with respect and they are loved and cherished by everyone, but they are made to be obedient. Also, another adult wouldn’t hesitate about reprimanding someone else’s child. They get to stay up very late on special holidays like Christmas and New Year’s Eve and often just lie down and sleep if tired. I honestly don’t remember seeing a child having a temper tantrum here.

  Don’t waste your energy on jealousy—it won’t do you any good. Be inspired!

  That last line was written for myself as much as anyone. It’s hard not to turn a little green when French people keep telling me they “don’t remember” the last time they saw a child have a major-league fit. A land without tantrums sounds like fiction to me—or maybe like a bath-salts ad touting supreme relaxation—and I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t heard it from any fewer than ten French sources. Just off the top of my head, I can list a bevy of Daphne’s tantrums from the past twenty-four hours:

  Yesterday afternoon—inconsolable because the tip of her pen “wasn’t bent right” (although she speaks wonderfully, I never figured out what she meant);

  Major conniption because we had run out of bubbles for the bathtub;

  Last night—approximately eight minutes of meltdown because she couldn’t “deal” with her blanket;

  This morning—thirty-minute very tearful and loud search party for her favorite tiara, soon followed by …

  Hysterics over a failed Internet connection and thus no video games on PBSkids.com.

  The French parenting site Enfants et Ados (www.enfants-ados.com) seems to have read Dolto’s book, posting as it did these “4 Easy Tips to Avoiding a Tantrum”:

  Être clair et fermes sur les principales règles.

  Rester serein face aux pleurs de l’enfant.

  Apprendre à l’enfant à savoir attendre.

  Apprendre à l’enfant à respecter également vos exigences.

  Or, in other words (with further elaboration translated by yours truly):

  Be clear about and firm on the main rules. It is important that parents establish unbendable rules for their children, such as, for example, remaining seated and buckled in the booster seat or in the car seat, holding the parent’s hand while crossing the road, going to bed at an established hour, or sitting correctly at the table. Rules may differ from one family to another, according to the standards of each, but they must be firm.

  Remain calm in the face of your child’s tears. It is important that parents attempt to understand whether the child is crying for a justified reason and that they know how to detect a tantrum. If such is the case (e.g., the kid is throwing a tantrum), the adult must absolutely ignore the child. Often, in fact, the child is throwing a tantrum to get attention, to make you change your mind, or to make you give in.

  Teach your child to wait. Waiting helps the child to better accept frustration and to learn to be patient. A child must know that he cannot always have immediate gratification. Waiting does not hinder a child’s psychological development; rather, it contributes to its reinforcement.

  Teach your child to respect your needs too. Even if it is true that children matter more than anything else, it is important to not lose your parental authority. (You are the chief!) A child must learn that you cannot constantly be at her side, cannot always play with her. It is important that she knows that you—the parents—are people and, as such, you need time for yourselves, for your life as a couple. Once again, it is common sense that must be applied.

  Before discovering the French way, I had come to accept that Daphne would launch into a full-on McEnroe at a moment’s notice because she knew that she could and that there was a good chance she’d get oodles of sympathy to boot. However, the chief (me, dammit!) has been devoted to rehabilitation. I kicked myself that we were in this leaky boat to begin with, but c’est la vie—I resolved to fix it. My plan: I implemented the Dolto-inspired “Easy Tips” (although they have never sounded too easy to me); more on my results shortly.

  The truth is, kids are much tougher than we think. They aren’t going to wilt or have underdeveloped self-esteem if we say “no,” enforce a punishment, or turn up (in some cases, turn on) the Strict-o-Meter. Dolto uses the term “symbolic castration” to describe the vexation children experience when they are given restrictions. She maintains that this figurative snipping is necessary for them to learn to control their desires and impulses. Clearly, my Daphne hasn’t spent enough time with the scarily named theories of Dr. Dolto. I never thought I’d look fondly on anything involving castration, especially in relation to my children, but it is clear that we could use a dose of this metaphorical stuff. Dolto does not advocate being a tyrant just for the hell of it. She wrote (in French, so I’ve translated): “If being strict means forbidding what is dangerous, then, yes, be strict—but with compassion and always while respecting the child, who is an adult in progress. We must take the responsibility upon ourselves to restrict certain things because they are psychologically or physically dangerous. If we parents are not strict … our children will be forced to regress and censor themselves, or at least try to. There is nothing more debilitating for a child; he wastes all his energy in the effort.… If we are strict, our children may be furious, but they will conserve their energy.”

  Before I became the chief, I’d often think about how much energy my kids and I would burn up debating everything. I feel like I’ve had some version of the following argument with Oona at least 2,829 times:

  Me: Honey, get your feet off the coffee table.

  Oona: But, Mom, they like it up there! Feet can feel, you know.

  Me: Not the right kind of feelings, but nice try.

  Oona: Okay, I’ll just keep my feet up there for one minute.

  Me: No, honey. Take your feet down now.

  Oona: But sometimes I see Daddy put his feet up on here. Daddy even lets me.

  Me: Take your feet down!

  Oona: And at Sophie’s house they’re allowed to stand on the table. Can I do that, then?

  Me: No. Put your feet down.

  Oona: I’ll put on my slippers. Then my feet won’t be on the table.

  Me: For God’s sake! Please take your feet down. I don’t like to see feet on the table!

  Oona: But I do, Mom. I like them up there.

  Me: Take your feet off the table right now, or else I’m going to have to think of a consequence.

  Oona: You are a mean mom!

  I am so not a mean mom—by this point in our “conversation,” the kid’s feet have been stinking up my table for more than five minutes. A true chief would forbid such foot follies. Riffing off Dolto, the French clinical psychologist Nathalie Rocailleux writes about how important it is not only to lay down the rules for children, especially between the ages of eighteen months and four years, but also to “explain to the child the reason for the limits.” This way, kids will “trust the adult’s words and come to understand authority as necessary and as a source of security.” I have a couple of great reasons I don’t want feet on the coffee table (oh, and I should remember to explain these reasons to my husband). First of all, people eat from there. Call me old-fashioned, but it’s kind of nasty to have foot funk, or even the memory of it, anywhere near an eating space, no matter how stinky the cheese upon it. Second, it’s bad manners. Ma
nners are huge in France, as I’ll discuss later. Right now I’ll just say that manners are good, and a healthy understanding of etiquette leads to better behaviors all around. I have heard it said, and now have found, that strong structure, and ritual for that matter, not only helps but actually creates discipline. If bedtime always occurs at eight o’clock, without all of the waffling and bargaining I know goes on in many American homes, then children will come to accept it as a given and not create a stink every night when it’s time to hit the hay. In our house, we’d disintegrated into the habit of announcing bedtime about twenty minutes before our target time, because a long negotiation had become inevitable. If I forgot to make the announcement, the girls got less sleep. That’s not right.

  Rocailleux also points out that adults should set rules that are reasonable—not tyrannical or based purely on their own desires—but that are for everyone’s good. She adds that the adults must apply the rule equally to everyone. Okay, new rule: No feet on tables. No exceptions (darling husband).

  I had a problem of giving in to my kids, which is a big, big problem, it turns out. So many times have I told them “only one show” (from Netflix—at least I’ve improved things a little by cutting cable), then relented when they sweetly begged for a second episode. Part of the trouble is that those cute little faces have so much power to manipulate me when used correctly, but other factors that have contributed to my frequent caving-in are: 1) Another twenty-five minutes of peace and quiet can be irresistible. 2) They are so happy and lovey when I relent. “You are the best mom in the omniverse!”

  Unfortunately, this led us to the point where they did not really hear what I said the first time, knowing that there was a good chance I’d crumble (sound familiar?). The French parents I’ve been squatting with lately would never buckle, no matter how adorable the pressure: “Catrine, don’t back down! You will have not so many arguments if you stick to your first word.”