French Twist (21 page)

The French are all about harvesting gracious members of society, so for the parents it is important to teach a child the art of discourse.
(Lesson #1: Try not to speak unless you have something interesting to say and, if part of a conversation already in progress, relevant to say.)
Of course, French parents aren’t going to harsh on the stories of a
three-year-old just mastering language, but I noted that at around ages five and six, many French kids are urged to step up the level of their chatter (or quit it).

I began to acknowledge that even when my girls did not have anything to say, they would start talking simply to wrestle their way to center stage. In their defense, no one had ever told them not to. Whenever they opened their mouths prior to the “new way,” they had generally been met with nothing but enthusiasm. I was loath to disparage Oona and Daphne’s little speeches. It seemed as if I would, in turn, be criticizing their personalities. Then again, as I became more aware of it, my patience—especially when they interrupted a perfectly enjoyable conversation to offer up something extraneous or mundane—began to wane. I’d seen French mothers chastise their children with a “Why are you boring me with this uninteresting story?” and “I have already heard about this from you before,” and it sounded so biting. Truthfully, French children are more accustomed to criticism, so I’m sure it did not affect them the way it would the tender pride of my kids. I can only imagine future years of therapy if I said something similar, and so I had to, rather happily, go half-French on this one. I made the case, in a nice, supportive American mom kind of way, that it is important to think about how to captivate your listeners before taking the floor. When an asinine story hits the airwaves at home, I don’t let it go, but I don’t trash it. I might say, “Tell me something else!” And, most important, I don’t applaud it.

Related to this, I’ve been working on their delivery—particularly
the length thereof. If a story is inching along painfully, I let them know. It took a few attempts to explain the phrase “You’re losing your audience” to Daphne, but she gets it now. Both girls are growing more accustomed to developing their thoughts before releasing them out into the world. No one seems scarred, and I don’t think I’m imagining that our dinner conversations have become more intriguing. This lesson in editing can only help with their charm skills later in life, when they are, say, in the lunchroom commanding the attention of a cluster of friends and not their ever-adoring parents.

The other half of this equation, of course, is cultivating a knack for listening.
(Lesson #2: Learn to listen.)
For Daphne, this has not been easy. She often reminds me of a humanized R2-D2, manically leaning on one foot and then the other, trying not to erupt while waiting to add her legitimate two cents to a conversation. I have a hard time not laughing outright when this happens, because it is so pathetically adorable, and as soon as Daph can concentrate on what others are saying and not direct every ounce of her energy toward keeping a lid on things, we’ll really be getting somewhere.

Looking ahead, some added savvy in the articulation department will also serve any American kid who grows up and attends a party in France, where most likely they will encounter a number of fervent arguments on everything from orange zest to politics. These kinds of conversations are like sport, and there is rarely any ill will imparted.

The first time I witnessed this phenomenon at a French get-together, I consciously backed away from two Frenchmen who were deep in a rollicking exchange about the Gaza flotilla raid, fearing that they were about to get physical and start throwing down. And then, as if nothing had happened, they switched their conversation to the Marseilles football club and were next seen raising a glass together. These fellas did not appear offended by each other in the least—to the contrary, they were delighted. I’ve heard it said that the mark of a good dinner party for the French is when the conversation gets heated and a vocal mêlée ensues. I am easily inflamed when people have the gall to disagree with me, and these French-style interactions provided a worthy new perspective.

I do pity the clown (often me—yes, I pity myself) who disagrees with Daphne. It doesn’t take much for Daph’s spikes to come out, so I’m particularly keen on implementing this offshoot to the art of conversation. The French are so very opinionated, and yet they do not seem particularly sensitive—unless, of course, they are in love. I like this. With skin about as thick as paper vellum, Oona and Daphne could use a dose of Frenchness in their metaphorical epidermis.
(Lesson #3: Let the discourse begin!)

I must admit, my French informants who ranked “style” high on their lists all had one foot in the United States. For instance, two of them have American spouses and visit
here often, and one, let’s call her Gina, is an American who married a Frenchman. Perhaps these sources are particularly sensitive to the subject of style and presentation because they have seen, firsthand, the differences between our two countries. Remembering her own, initially rocky transition to life in France, Gina said, “I had to get used to sprucing myself up for even the playground. No more sweats, that’s for sure. I hated it at first, but now I guess I’m happy about it. It’s good to look good. I go home and sometimes see grown people out in pajama pants, and it kind of makes me sad.”

There’s a reason Jerry Seinfeld once devoted an entire episode of his comedy series to this issue, declaring that his pal George, who had begun to wear sweatpants out of the house, had, in effect, “given up.” Me—I’m not yet ready to give up.

My guess is that for the native Frenchies, the custom of careful dress is so ingrained in their psyches that they don’t even realize how forcefully they pass it on down the line. For them, it would be like listing “the ability to breathe” as something they hold dear.

Before going any further, however, I’m going to borrow from my previous sentence and swap in “style” for “careful dress.” The French always look tasteful and put-together, but the rebel in me (the one who still owns—and wears—leopard-print creepers, those punk–rockabilly shoes with the enormous soles that are probably less common on a French playground than the sweatpants) does not necessarily equate this with style.

Whatever you want to call it, the French mince no words when it comes to the outfits their children put together. For them, careful dress is a sign of consideration for both the company one keeps and the activities they engage in. According to Susanne, a mother from southern France, whenever visitors come to her home in Provence, her two young children are expected to greet them at the door, winsomely dressed and with their hair combed. By the way, she also insists that they look all callers in the eye during the requisite salutations. You’d never see Susanne’s children lounging on the couch in their pajamas and playing on a Nintendo DS if you arrived for a planned visit. She remarked that this would convey “that we feel too lazy to have company.” I can see where she’s coming from, but I also wanted to counter, “Ease up, lady!” (But I didn’t.)

From what I’ve seen, French parents, mostly the moms, don’t think twice about sending children back to their rooms to try again if they’ve selected a poor clothing combo. My friend Peter, who was raised just outside Paris, remarked, “Until my sister was eighteen years old, my mother would send her back to her room to change. Oh, how my sister hated it!” When I naïvely asked what his sister would do, he gave me a look that said, “What do you think?” Then he responded, “Of course she went and changed. What else could she do?” I’m still getting used to that.

I do wish I had a similar power, especially for those times when Oona emerges looking like a lunatic who dressed in the dark. Sometimes it seems as though she is
going for some kind of Guinness Book of World Records entry for most number of patterns worn at one time. But, again, I suffer from the fear that I’ll be corking her bubbling individuality. And then I wonder, was it self-expression that impelled her to select the flowy pastel-flowered shirt with a Peter Pan collar to go with navy sweatpants, or did she go there because she didn’t know any better—or perhaps because she didn’t really care? Either way, it became clear that someone should step in, and,
évidemment
, I was that someone. One French mother suggested I number-code all of Oona and Daphne’s clothes, as her own mother had done for her: Any ones could be worn together, any twos were fair game, and so on. I gave it some thought, but this method, while perhaps more gentle than declaring, “You look ridiculous in those clothes. Go change!” is too neurotic—not to mention time-consuming—for me.

I found my solution by simply bringing up the concept of fashion sense with my kids. In fact, I even turned our style sessions into a game—very American—called
dans la mode
. After Oona and Daphne accepted that this had nothing to do with ice cream, they got into it. Every so often (particularly when it’s rainy out) we’ll take all of their clothes out of the drawers, separate them by species (e.g., leggings in one pile, shirts in another), and then they lay out outfits on the bed and
discuss
them together. Kids, by the way, love clipboards—at least mine do. We made a sheet with categories to think about when reviewing ensembles, including “colors,” “shapes,” “overall feeling,” and “season.” For Daphne, who can’t read yet, I drew pictures
next to each division. Inevitably, she ends up trying things on while performing a little show. Before you get visions of me being a raging stage mom, I swear it is not like that at all. We still listen to the
Free to Be … You and Me
soundtrack, and I won’t force them to wear something they hate—I’m just helping out, like a
mère française
.

The hard part is when Daphne materializes wearing an outfit that, while technically matching, still manages to be insane. Picture this: royal-blue leggings bespattered with big pink stars and a pink T-shirt, overlaid with a light-blue sleeveless leotard featuring a flouncy attached tutu. And high red boots with multiple straps and zippers to top the look off. And a hair thingy. (Okay—I suppose I need to be more selective about what I buy for them as well.)

She was beaming with pride. I knew that I would have to search pretty far for a French mother who’d allow this getup (not
at all
dissimilar to something Hulk Hogan might sport) out of the house. Well, at least she matched.

I almost laughed orange juice out my nose while having breakfast with Belinda, a mother of three from California who sends her children to a French–American school. As about 50 percent of the students at the school are French (as in from France), Belinda has had plenty of opportunity to observe the style differences. “First of all,” she told me, “you should know that my mother-in-law can barely stand to go out in public with my daughters. They are toddlers, so I don’t really mind that they have wild hair and dress like they’re constantly on hallucinogens. But this
is severely painful to my husband’s mother’s French sensibilities. It is truly torture for her. I admit, my girls are noticeably more unkempt than the other kids in their preschool, but this is not a normal school. For instance, one of the parents actually started her own children’s clothing label so that she could have the appropriate French kind of apparel for her son. The clothes are cute and also utterly ridiculous—like short slacks, which stop right above the knee, and little caps. That style of pants/shorts is very French to me. I remember seeing this father on the playground once, wearing those shorts with a blue-and-white-striped shirt, like a gondolier would wear, buttoned down to show some chest, with a black vest and a beautiful kind of gnarled-wood necklace with gold, and then red patent-leather Birkenstocks. I remember thinking,
He’s not gay, just French
.”

Side note: I’ve been racking up quite a few nice comments from the moms around school who’ve noticed an uptick in my own look lately (this, by the way, was not hard to accomplish for someone who used to be part of the sweatpant people). In explaining that it was a by-product of our mini coup d’état at home, I realized that part of the reason I have the time in the morning to primp a bit is that I am no longer tending to every whim of my kids. Then again, my oldest friend has gotten creative and simply puts her son to bed in the clothes (always sweats) that he’ll be wearing to school the next morning, thus buying herself more time. Victor Hugo once said that “the French Revolution was the anointing of humanity.” I’m not sure he
meant buying more time in the morning by putting one’s kids to sleep in sweatpants, but, in any case: Amen, brother!

Of course, this is high priority for the French—the phrase is so familiar it needs no translation. I thought it was endearing that the French parents I polled actually mentioned this as something they wanted to foster in their children. I had thought it was one of those phrases that we love to repeat and run with because they are so quaint, but secretly I feared it had little to do with the reality of French life.

Fear not.

This is a kind of “payoff” priority. Without well-mannered, self-sufficient, good-conversationalist children who appreciate small beautiful things (for example), the French could never have taken home the championship belt as the nation that spends more time than any other eating, sleeping, and shopping (this from a recent study conducted by the OECD, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, an international organization of more than thirty developed countries). And, make no mistake, it’s not that the French eat and buy more: rather, they take their time and enjoy themselves. I’m sure that added shopping time is spent on selecting fresh, delightful ingredients for a meal, which will then be lingered over for hours while they engage in lively conversation (uninterrupted
by any dull musings from their youngest citizens). It’s all part of the lifestyle. As the French also took home the silver for second place in life expectancy, it may not be such a bad one to imitate.