•You have to taste a bit of everything at a meal, but you don’t have to eat it all.
•When we go out, I can veto your outfit if it’s inappropriate, but at home you can wear what you want.
•Most of the time you can’t eat sweets, but you can at the afternoon snack.
•I don’t buy nonnecessities on demand, but you can buy them with your pocket money. (French kids usually start getting monthly pocket money at about age seven. The typical amount corresponds to the child’s age; e.g., a seven-year-old gets seven euros—about nine and a half dollars—per month.)
65. Everybody Needs a Curse Word
There’s a special one for French preschoolers: caca boudin (pronounced caca booh-dah). This literally translates as “poop sausage,” but it’s an all-purpose word that can mean “you wish,” “bollocks,” or “whatever.” No one teaches his child to say caca boudin. Kids just pick it up from one another. Their parents might cringe a bit when they hear the phrase, but they tend not to ban it. Instead, they teach kids to wield it appropriately. Some tell their children they can say caca boudin only in the bathroom, or when they’re alone with their friends. They can’t say it to teachers, or at dinner. Kids are subject to lots of rules. Sometimes they just need to say caca boudin.
66. Hand Your Kids Over
If you can get a grandparent or trusted relative on board, let your child spend some time away from you. (French five-year-olds go on multiday class trips without any parents along, just teachers. During school holidays, they’ll often spend a week or two alone with their grandparents.) Give your surrogate a few basic instructions, and try to project cheerful confidence when you’re saying good-bye. Don’t worry that Grandma will do things differently from you; your child mostly just needs tenderness, attention, and a bit of food. Start out with an overnight stay, then move up to a long weekend. “If everything goes well, he’ll come back smarter,” a French child psychiatrist explains* about kids aged three to five. “You’ll find him changed, he will have learned to behave like a big boy. He’ll gain in independence.” I won’t even start on the benefits to his parents.
67. Don’t Become a Referee
The French ideal is for adults to avoid becoming the arbiters of all disputes—whether between siblings, playmates, or new acquaintances in the sandbox. A father tells me that when his five-year-old twins argue, he asks them to suggest a solution. (They usually think of something, he says.) Teachers say they back off at recess, to give kids some much-needed freedom (“If we intervene all the time, they go a little nuts,” one day-care minder explained).
French experts say that sibling rivalry is inevitable and that the arrival of a new baby is a genuine shock for an older child. In the latter case, “you must console him, help him express himself, reassure him, tell him that you understand his anxiety, his sorrow, his jealousy, show him that it’s normal for him to have these feelings,” one parenting book says.
68. Keep the Risks in Perspective
French parents know about choking hazards, allergies, and pedophiles. They take reasonable precautions. But they try not to obsess over far-flung scenarios. Instead of internalizing all worry, they believe that parents should speak to children about risks and teach them how to protect themselves. A French expert suggests explaining to a child as young as one that cars exist and that they’re dangerous; thus he cannot cross a street without an adult.
There’s a crucial difference between shielding a child from danger and cutting him off from the world. Remember that children gain confidence from overcoming difficulties and relying on their own resources. As one French writer warns, “To grow up without risk is to risk not growing up.”
69. Don’t Raise a Praise Addict
A French mother tells me that instead of saying “Bravo” when her five-year-old does something well, she sometimes prefers to ask, “Are you proud of yourself?” Like many French parents, she believes that children don’t build self-esteem from being relentlessly assured that they’re doing a good job. They build it from doing new things by themselves, and doing them well. Indeed, praising a child too much can be damaging. He’ll become so eager to maintain your high opinion that he won’t want to risk trying something new. Or he’ll do things merely to get the brief high that comes from hearing “Bravo,” but will lose motivation when you’re not there to say it. Of course you should be encouraging (you don’t want to underpraise either). Just don’t overdo it.
70. Encourage Kids to Speak Well
Once a child can speak fluently, French parents and teachers don’t automatically coo at everything he says. When he’s wildly off topic, they say so, and steer him back. At the dinner table, they pay more attention when he says clever things and expresses himself well. This is meant to be constructive. They aim to turn the child into a good conversationalist, not a bore who blathers on. (He might get away with that at his grandmother’s, but it will be less charming later on dates.)
71. Expect the “Déclic”
The déclic (deh-kleek) is an aha moment when a child figures out how to do something important on his own. Something clicks. For young children, it can be the period when they become potty trained or work out how to make friends. For teenagers, it’s the moment or period when they become motivated to do well at school, or when they stop working to satisfy their parents and start working because they want to succeed for themselves. It’s a welcome sign of maturity and autonomy. French parents often wait and hope for their children to have a déclic. Non-French parents do, too. It’s helpful to have a name for it.
72. Let Children Have a “Jardin Secret”
The French believe that everyone is entitled to a “secret garden”—a private realm. It’s part of being an independent person. Even very involved parents accept that their children need privacy—particularly as they grow older—and will have some secrets. They don’t expect to know every detail of their children’s lives. They do expect to know that, generally, everything is okay.
73. Respect a Child’s Space, and He’ll Respect Yours, Too
Autonomy is something fundamental that your child needs. (Françoise Dolto said that by age six, a child should be able to do everything at home that concerns him.) Granting him autonomy—as he’s ready—shows that you trust and respect him. It’s an appeal to his higher self. Give him this, and he’s more likely to respect what you need, too. Ideally, as the French say, everyone in the family should get to live his life.
Chapter 8
cherchez la femme
French mothers strive for a very particular kind of balance in their lives. It’s not a keeping-plates-in-the-air balance. It’s more like a balanced meal (you wouldn’t want to eat just potatoes). The French ideal is that no one part of your life—not being a wife, a worker, or a mom—should eclipse the other parts. Even the most devoted maman expects to devote energy and passion to things other than her children.
France has all kinds of social services that make it easier to do this. But it also has a different approach to womanhood, guilt, and free time. The reigning view in France is that if the child is a woman’s only goal, everyone suffers, including the child. Not all French moms manage to maintain just the right équilibre. But crucially, they keep it in mind.
74. Guilt Is a Trap
For American mothers, guilt can be like a tax you pay for being away from your child. It buys you some free time. As long as you feel guilty about leaving her, you can escape for a few hours. (Sociologists call this leisure time spent worrying “contaminated time.”)
French moms understand the temptation to feel guilty. But they don’t want to spoil their precious free time. Instead of embracing guilt, they try to push it away. When they meet up for drinks, they remind one another that “the perfect mother doesn’t exist” and take pride in being able to detach from their children and relax. “When I’m there, I give them one hundred percent, but when I’m off, I’m off,” a mother of thre
e explains.
75. Show Kids That You Have a Life Apart from Them
It’s not enough for French mothers to have pleasures and interests apart from their children. They also want their kids to know about these things. They believe it’s burdensome for a child to feel that she’s the sole source of her mother’s happiness and satisfaction. (A Parisian mother I know told me she was going back to work partly for her daughter’s sake.)
Frenchwomen want other adults to see that they have nonmom lives, too. Even if they’ve spent the day folding tiny socks, they strive to resist talking at length about their children’s toilet habits. They know that if you act (and dress) as if you have a fascinating inner life, you may soon find that you actually do—and that you feel more balanced as a result.
There are pragmatic reasons for having a life of your own. Some Frenchwomen drop out of the workforce when they have kids, but many don’t. Even those in stable marriages calculate that not making their own money leaves them financially vulnerable in case of divorce. And they believe that, sans paycheck, they’ll lose status and decision-making power at home and become less interesting to people outside of it.
76. Don’t Attend Children’s Birthdays
They’re for kids. In Paris, from about age three, birthday parties and playdates are usually drop-offs. Parents don’t feel they must supervise another adult’s supervision of their child, or stick around to reassure the child herself. They make sure she’s in good hands, and then they leave. Usually they’re invited back for coffee or cocktails at the end. It’s a practical way of coping with the fact that all parents are extremely busy, and that—while we’re delighted that our kids get along—we’re not all actually friends.
77. Lose the Baby Weight
For Frenchwomen, there’s no better proof that they haven’t morphed from femme to maman than getting back their prebaby figures, or some reasonable facsimile thereof. Parisiennes often aim to do this by three months postpartum.
It helps that they don’t gain too much weight while they’re pregnant and that they’re not permanently exhausted from night wake-ups. Many French moms also follow a nondeprivation diet as a matter of course. During the week they eat smallish portions, have the main meal at lunchtime, don’t snack between meals, and avoid bread, pasta, and sugary foods. But on weekends (or on one weekend day) they eat freely. In other words, they don’t vow never to eat lasagna or croissants again; they just save these for special occasions. Frenchwomen are in step with recent research showing that people have more self-control when they don’t permanently exclude certain foods; they just tell themselves that they’ll have them later. Studies also recommend closely monitoring your weight (Frenchwomen call this paying attention).
78. Don’t Dress Like a Mom
Unless a Frenchwoman is actually holding a child, it’s usually hard to tell if she’s a mother. There’s no telltale look or type of pants. They don’t sex it up to overcompensate. But they don’t walk around wearing sweatpants and scrunchies either. Instead, they seek an elegant middle ground. Frenchwomen don’t feel selfish for caring about their appearance. (In the French edition of Marie Claire, a mother of three confesses that she’s sometimes so busy she wears unmatched bras and panties.) Looking good improves morale and makes you feel more balanced. It just does.
79. Don’t Become a “Taxi Mother”
Parisian mothers think it’s perfectly reasonable to weigh the impact on their own quality of life when making choices for their children. A Frenchwoman who spends most of her free time shuttling her kids between extracurricular activities isn’t seen as a devoted mom—she’s viewed as someone who has dramatically lost her balance. Her sacrifice isn’t even considered good for the kids. Yes, they may benefit from studying judo and taking piano lessons. But they also need to have unstructured time at home. A French psychologist says there’s a crucial difference between being responsive and attentive to your child and becoming a “vending machine” who’s always on.
80. You Can Be Happier Than Your Least Happy Child
Really you can. It doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person. It means that you’re a separate person with your own needs and temperament. French mothers are deeply affected by their children’s feelings. But they believe it’s best to respond to an upset child with objectivity and calm. You’re modeling the way you’d like your child to feel.
Chapter 9
finding your couple
French experts say that in the first few months after the baby is born, his parents should—indeed must—give themselves over to his care. The family is in the fusionelle phase. Some call this, presidentially, the first hundred days.
But sometime around the three-month mark, parents are supposed to gradually make room for their own relationship again. There’s no fixed schedule. No one expects them to abandon the baby and jump on a flight to Bali. It’s more of a rebalancing in which they “relearn the contours of intimacy”—both physically and emotionally, and make space in the family home where they can be a couple too.
81. Your Baby Doesn’t Replace Your Husband
He’s cuddly, he’s adorable, and your mother loves him. But your child shouldn’t permanently nudge your partner out of the picture. “The family is based on the couple. If it exists only through children, it withers,” a French psychologist explains. In some families, the three-month mark is when the baby starts sleeping in his own room. (Until then he may have been in a bassinet in his parents’ room, or even in their bed.) Long-term cosleeping is very rare in France, in part because it keeps things between Mom and Dad from getting back to normal.
The French famously believe that all healthy people—old people, ugly people, even new parents—have sex drives. A leading French parenting magazine says that if your libido hasn’t returned by four to six months postpartum, you should seek professional help.
82. Your Bedroom Is Your Castle
Guard it carefully. Your child doesn’t have the right to barge in whenever he wants. For starters, you need sleep. Explain to him that in the morning he must play in his room until it’s very bright outside (or teach him to read a digital clock, and explain that he can’t come in until the first number is an eight—or a seven on school days).
It’s also important for him to understand—through tender gestures and closed doors—that there’s a part of his parents’ lives that doesn’t involve him. “My parents’ room was a sacred place, different from the rest of the house,” one Frenchwoman recalls. “You didn’t just walk in, you had to have a good reason. Between them there was an obvious pleasure that implied something unknown for us, the children.” If your child believes he already has it all—that there’s no mysterious adult world to aspire to—why should he bother growing up?
83. Be Clear-Eyed About How Hard Kids Are on a Relationship
The French swoon for babies, but they also talk about “le baby-clash”—the risk of couples separating in the first two years after the birth, from the shock of becoming coparents and of losing their freedom. Experts don’t have a magic solution, but say it’s helpful to see this coming (“It’s not us honey, it’s le baby-clash!”) and to discuss problems with each other. Reigniting intimacy helps, too, as does clearly divvying up baby duties.
84. Pretend to Agree
No matter how misguided your partner’s proclamations about the household rules are, don’t contradict him in front of the kids. Wait and speak to him in private. He should do the same for you. You’ll build complicity with your spouse. And since the rules aren’t up for discussion, they’ll have more force. You’ll both seem more authoritative to the children, and they’ll be reassured by the impression that there’s something solid at the family’s core.
85. 50/50 Isn’t the Gold Standard
Feeling entitled to absolute equality in housework and child care can be a recipe for resentment and rage. Fifty-fifty rarely happens. Try tempering your feminist theory with some old-fashion
ed French pragmatism. Frenchwomen would love their partners to do more, but many make peace with a division of labor that isn’t equal but that more or less works. They try to weigh equality against having a husband who’s calm and destressed after his Saturday morning soccer match. And they’ve discovered that there’s less conflict when everyone has his or her own tasks to perform at home—even if the actual hours involved aren’t equal. Paradoxically, if you’re less angry, you might want to have more sex, and he might do more around the house as a result.
86. Treat Men Like a Separate Species
Take the edge off inequality even more by treating men the way that many Frenchwomen do—as adorably hapless creatures who, in most cases, are biologically incapable of keeping track of the kids’ inoculation schedules. Of course they come home with the wrong kind of cereal and with strawberries that look as if they’ve been beaten with a mallet. They’re men! They just can’t help it. (One Frenchwoman told me, with mock exasperation, that her husband makes only his side of the bed.) Frenchwomen advise trying not to throw a tantrum when you come home from a business trip to find your home besieged by dirty laundry. Assume that the poor fellow was doing his best.
Bringing Up Bébé Page 32
