French Twist Read online

  Well, no. But my American self could not fathom any other way.

  I’ve spent so much time and soul-sapping energy caught up in drama with my daughters, and I am certainly not the only American mom who suffers through this guilt-riddled dynamic. In fact, journalist Judith Warner wrote an excellent book, Perfect Madness, about the root of this problem, which she terms the “Mommy Mystique.” My children aren’t particularly clingy when measured next to their American peers, but compared to French children they’re like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, minus the butcher knife.

  Although I often longed for real time off from Oona and Daphne, I regularly felt too bad about leaving them. This has affected not only my sanity but also my career, my social life, and even my marriage. The first time my husband and I were bold enough to leave the kids for more than a handful of hours was our tenth wedding anniversary. Pretty pathetic when you consider that we’d started having kids five years after we got hitched. We had always talked about spending a week in Paris (my Francophilia rears its beret-topped head), but when the anniversary arrived, we dared only to go as far as New Orleans—for about thirty-eight hours, including the flight. Yet it took enormous effort, which I recently relived by reading over an email I’d sent to my brother Ben and his wife, Penny, who stayed with the girls while we were gone. I was tempted to include the message, but that would about double the length of this book. Okay, not really, but we are talking many, many bullet points. At four and six, my girls were capable of speech—they could have told their minders where to locate extra pants, and I suppose Ben and Penny didn’t need to know that the kindergarten teacher gives out stickers. I managed to put together this novella for the babysitters, yet I remember being so pressed for time that I forgot my own toiletries. Even more ridiculous: Ben and Penny had lived with us on and off for years. Of course, the reason I went into manic mode was that I was utterly plagued with guilt for leaving my babies (who, by the way, were so not babies any longer).

  I do have to reveal a little piece of the email in the interest of illustrating what I’ve managed to overcome with Daphne at bedtime:

  2) Bed—As Daphne doesn’t nap at school, she’s been going to bed by 7:30 (or earlier) and usually sleeping until 7:15. If this happens, she’ll be fine. If she goes to bed too late or wakes up too early, I’m afraid that you are screwed. She becomes a raving maniac by the next afternoon. We’ve been starting bedtime at 7:00ish to get them down by 7:30. Oona will want you to read from a Ramona book, and Daph will probably pick a stack of other ones. Okay, I’ve mentioned that Daph is impossible, right? Bedtime is the biggest challenge. Lately, I’ve been working on leaving the room before they are asleep, so we usually read, get in bed, and turn off the lights (and turn on the flower night-light on the castle bookshelf). I lie on the floor with the 54-inch pillow and the other soft pink one, sing them a song or two, and then the rule is that I stay for 3 minutes (which is usually more like 10 because I get comfortable and don’t want to get up). Then I get up and give them 3 kisses and 3 hugs. If either is already asleep, skip the hugs and kisses. When I leave, I leave the door open. Half of the time, Daphne will come wandering out. If she hasn’t napped that day, there’s a better chance that she’ll conk out immediately. Anyway, she’s a pain. If she comes out, do whatever you want. I usually sternly say she has to go back to bed, but if you guys yell at her she’s likely to freak out so I’ll just leave it up to you.

  Here’s the really great part—EVERY SINGLE NIGHT (usually between 1 and 3), Daphne makes her way into our room. At that point, I go to Daphne’s bed and Daphne sleeps for the rest of the night in our room with Mac. Don’t judge us—we are so tired and Daphne is IMPOSSIBLE (see references above). So, you can plan on a little bit of musical beds. On the bright side, Daphne’s bed is so comfortable.

  Ah, that guilt. It is a scourge to the parents, particularly mothers, of my generation. Like many of my friends, I quit my full-time job when my first child was six months old, and I’d been back to work for four months, because I was sick with worry that I was shortchanging my baby by leaving her with a nanny—and in my case the “nanny” was Ben and Penny. I had heard the refrain “Why even have a child if you are going to pay someone else to raise it?” so many times that I began to believe I was a terrible mother for working. Since I was not the highest earner at the time, financially it almost made more sense for me to stay home than to pay for child care, but for many American women this is not an option—yet they often still suffer a mountain of guilt. Along with my job, I also gave up my gym membership, any need to dry-clean my clothes, and a whole part of my brain that was once reserved for thoughts about things like books and art. There seemed to be no room for that kind of reverie anymore with my new mindset, filled with panic about making it to singalong on time or whether I was properly moisturizing Oona’s skin.

  I’m not sure why I felt such intense pressure to spend all of my time with my kids. In fact, I don’t think it’s particularly healthy, and I don’t want the same for my girls when they are mothers. But everywhere I turned, from the marketers to the mommy blogs, I was bombarded with guilt, and it worked a number on me. It is truly a joy to be coming out from under this cloud. The new refrain that I have been trying to spread around is: “Why should parents have to completely give up their identity just because they decided to have children?”

  I do see now why it’s easier for a French mom not to endlessly yearn and roil in worry, guilt, and boredom, even when they are away from their children for more than a day. At first I thought they possessed a different chemical makeup that instructed them to take time off from the kids—time for careers, vacations, wine, dinners alone with their partner, regular intervals of peace and quiet, and wine (yes, I said wine twice). Once I really got around, I realized it wasn’t some fluke brain modulation but rather French society—from French obstetricians to priests and seemingly everyone in between—that sent the message. Doubtless, the memo over here is très different in content. Where the French are told that it is a duty to the family to devote ample time to the marriage and not become overpowered by the lives of the children, I believed that my sole duty—purpose—was to give everything to my kids.

  It’s no wonder that this idea found its way into my psyche; if you tune in, which most of us do when we become pregnant, you will hear the constant national humming of parental sacrifice. New and expecting mothers take in a single phrase ad nauseam: “Your baby deserves the best!” Indeed, it must be the first line marketers are taught to melt the minds of their parental prey; it’s applied to selling everything from changing tables to diaper bags to air purifiers (and the aforementioned wipe warmers). Google it and you’ll see that there’s hardly any item from babyland that isn’t sold with this guilt-inducing maxim.

  But, really, does my child deserve the best changing table? My first baby got it (because I’m a sucker), but I gave it away before having a second and then discovered that a mat on the bed was just as effective, and a whole lot easier. In retrospect, I’m sure that a safe and serviceable table would have been fine as well. I’ll give in with the air purifier, especially if a kid has asthma, but the best diaper bag? The best Onesie? The best night-light? Merchandisers want to sell their wares, so it’s not surprising they’ve gone the guilt route (let’s remember the cord-blood controversy from earlier). In light of all of the other messages new parents receive in the United States, there should be some kind of compassionate supervision of the practice of messing with les nouveaux.

  My parenting pals in France tell me that they do not feel beset in the same way. There’s not a lot I can do about how we Americans are marketed to, but I can remind you that you aren’t a bad parent if you don’t get “the best!” organic washcloth and towel set ever made out of hemp by the mountain women of Transylvania.

  Am I starting to sound like Élisabeth Badinter or what? No, I suppose she would pronounce it “emp.”

  Most of the time, worry is a waste of energy. For a while there, I
was beating myself up for not making the time to teach Oona to tie her shoes. I worried that she would be mocked or embarrassed by her inability, but remembering my own struggle with the laces, I was waiting for the right time and a sufficient stockpile of patience and strength to begin with Oona. Then one day I overheard her proudly telling Mac that her teacher had anointed her “the class shoe-tier,” and whenever kids needed help, they were sent to Oona. Apparently, while I was wallowing in the shame of being a bad mom, she’d taught herself how to tie. There is a lesson here.

  I’ll admit, I was pretty pumped at the prospect of reentering the adult world as part of my Franco-parenting enterprise. Why, sure, I’ll go out to dinner more, spend regular time alone with my husband and friends, shop by myself, read grown-up books—all in the name of promoting a healthy home life. In reality, it took some genuine, often uncomfortable effort. Letting go of the guilt, which had been as constant a companion as my children themselves, was rather tricky. The adjustment for my family to a model with a mother who pursues her own interests and has a social life turned out to be the most complicated for yours truly. Initially, Oona and Daphne were outraged with the semi-regular Saturday-night babysitter. And they were miffed that I started reading novels at the playground instead of watching their every stunt. But they caught on rather fast: It’s just the way things are done. My husband loved it because we had more to talk about than what Oona ate for lunch or who in Daphne’s class could ride a two-wheel bike.

  For me, however, there is a constant game of child-rearing Whac-A-Mole in progress, with a form of angst that attacks so many American moms. (Whac-A-Neurosis?) I’ll stretch out with that Pulitzer Prize–winning novel and then feel guilty—like I should be making Play-Doh or researching summer camps. That is when I summon to mind the French design, legions of mères et pères who don’t spend their days hustling to make their kids’ lives perfect in every way. What is even better, it seems to be good for the kids—that is, if you consider a serious decrease in the frazzle factor a good thing.

  I learned a lot through some international playground-hopping. The scene at the jungle gyms in France is much different from what we have going here—namely, a pack of hyperengaged parents trolling behind their little charges to ensure their safety or simply to be head cheerleader, digital camera whipped this way and that in place of pom-poms. In France, you are more likely to see kids playing and grown-ups sitting on the benches, either reading or chatting with one another (interestingly, not nearly as glued to their smart-phones as we are in the States). There appears to be no compulsion on the parents’ part to monitor every move, trick, and potential misstep their children might make.

  When I went to France last year, I was at first a little concerned about my plan to observe playgrounds. Wouldn’t the parents and nannies be put off, creeped out even, by the childless lady on the bench? I have no problem figuring out which kid belongs to whom in the States, because, if the parent or caregiver isn’t shadowing their offspring everywhere, then the kid is constantly screaming, “Look at me!” “Did you see how good I did?” “Watch me do it again!” “Play monster!” I suppose if the French discerned I did not have a child at the playground, they might have thought I was sketchy, but they had no way of knowing I was unattached. For all they knew, my kid was at the top of the play structure, happily cavorting with theirs. It is not that they are negligent; rather, there is a different perception of the presence of danger in France—the French impression being that it doesn’t lurk everywhere.

  With this in mind, I’ve been trying to modulate my own levels of paranoia. Another game of Whac-A-Mole here. I’ve begun to worry—how ironic—that my own parenting anxieties were detrimentally affecting the girls. Like those times last summer when Oona refused to go outside because she was afraid she had already had too much sun exposure. These should not be the concerns of a six-year-old. There was no mystery about where she got this: I’m a sunblock fiend.

  Note to self: Modulate paranoia.

  This reminded me of when I was pregnant for the first time and learned I was having a girl. Mac and I were trying to wrap our heads around our future and found ourselves talking about the children of our friends—specifically how it freaked us out that the current generation seemed so comfortable using the word “vagina” when describing anatomy. It seemed so clinical and grown-up. We decided to give our kids more kidlike vocabulary. I suggested we go with “water hose,” the blanket term for all genitalia that my parents had us use while growing up—now that I think about it, it’s possible they still use it. Mac was not convinced. One day we were talking about it with a good friend, who also happens to be a social worker, and she insisted that we ABSOLUTELY had to teach our child (as yet unborn) the proper, scientific terminology, because if, God forbid, she was ever abused and interviewed by police or a psychologist, they could not proceed with an investigation if her testimony was not reliable. She even proposed we teach the world “vulva.” I was immediately persuaded, and my girls are both perfectly comfortable in their anatomical-speak (more so than I am, I suspect). When I related this story to a French mother years later, she threw her arms up and laughed. “My God, we are different! If a French child ever said the word ‘vagin’ to a policeman, they would probably think she was being abused at home. No, for the little ones, we say ‘kiki’ and ‘zizi.’”

  I’m not so hung up on what language my kids are using, but I have thought a lot about this instinct to assume the worst possible outcome and work off this point. We just might end up with a generation of jellyfish.

  I am trying very hard to be less anxious and compulsive with my kids. This is very French (and thus can be rewarded with a chocolate croissant if you, like me, swing that way).

  Of course, the French have their own anxieties and sometimes act compulsively, but those behaviors are generally not their visceral reaction when it comes to the parenting life. While on a walk with a French father of three, I was schooled on the problem. “You must know, Catherine, kids cannot be satisfied. I see these parents exhausting themselves trying to do all sorts of things to make the children smile and be popular, but these children need to learn things for themselves too. And they cannot do this if those parents keep doing it for them. No matter what you give them, they will want more. It’s in their nature. This applies to toys and sweets but also certainly for attention.”

  It is not so easy back home to shut off the attention spigot, but my husband and I have definitely slowed the outpouring. The girls still often beg us to watch each playground antic, usually on the monkey bars, and we will watch a couple of cool tricks, but there’s a limit. Here’s my new French-inspired reaction: “I’ll watch you do it twice, but then I’m going to sit by the tree and read. Practice your tricks well, and I’ll watch for a little bit next time we are at the playground and let you know if you’ve improved. Don’t hurt yourself.” God, how I love reading novels!

  If you think this sounds cold and heartless, perhaps a quick look at the benefits of independent play will help. In his book Pediatric Compliance: A Guide for the Primary Care Physician, Dr. Edward R. Christophersen explains that “children can be taught independent play skills much like we would teach them anything else.… When a child is able to entertain himself for long periods of time—we look for 1 to 2 hours of independent play by 4 years of age—there is much less need for discipline.”

  Oh, there is so much in this that warms my overtaxed cockles, starting with less need for discipline. The fact that these skills can be taught is great news for parents like me. Dr. Christophersen points out that most toddlers already have these skills but that their parents don’t take the proper steps to foster them. And, I might add, we even inadvertently stymie them. The more I read from Pediatric Compliance, the more surprisingly French Christophersen appears. He goes on to say: “When a child has self-quieting skills and independent play skills, the issue of behavioral compliance becomes much easier. For one thing, when parents rely on discipline to keep a chi
ld out of trouble, instead of relying on competing activities the child truly enjoys, the parents must maintain a high level of vigilance. In the long run, it is far easier to encourage the development of self-quieting and independent play skills than it is to monitor a child’s every activity.” It is also a lot easier to have a phone conversation, make dinner, or even take a darn shower!

  But it gets even better, and in a subsequent book, Parenting That Works (co-written with child psychologist Dr. Susan Mortweet) Christophersen asserts that kids who have developed these independent play skills tend to find enough enjoyment in their activities alone and thus have less of a need for parental involvement in their games or external rewards. The doctors contend that such skills help children to sit still, whether it be for a whopper of a homework assignment, burying themselves in a book, or working on a new hobby.

  This puts the whole image of an aloof French parent into a new perspective. When Daphne complains, ten minutes after getting home from school, “I need you to play with me, because I have no one else to play with!” I now employ a new tactic. Or I try, anyway. I promise to play for the beginning only, and we set the timer for fifteen minutes. When the timer goes off, she’s on her own. Lately we’ve been playing dolls, with her favorite two going on hair-raising escapades throughout the house. When my time is up (thanks, timer!), she usually takes over for both dolls and keeps the game going. She isn’t up to carrying on solo for two hours yet, but things are certainly progressing. In fact, it is not uncommon at all for her to initiate a game without me having to kick things off.

  How do you say “Can I get a ‘woo-woo’ ” in French?

  The French parents I observed seemed to have less time to, say, get down on the floor and build a Lego spaceship with their kids or jump into the bunk-bed fort for a tea party, because they were busy doing their own things. This made me sad at first glance, but after reading the work of Dr. Christophersen, I am heartened in my search for a middle ground. There are so many benefits for everyone to having a child who can placate himself. Still, sometimes I really want to join that bunk-bed party. So I do.