Parisian Parentals

I jutted into traffic to protect Dancer Friend's new little bundle in his stroller as we crossed the busy Paris streets near Canal Saint Martin. J was born just two months ago and DF was braving a trip into the city alone for the first time.

After a thirty-minute set back due to projectile baby spit up, she had finally found a parking spot, put the stroller back together, texted me that J was screaming, but that she was still going to try and power through.

Courageous is what I call that.

We met on the corner of the quai and quickly assessed that her first suggestion of Ten Belles, the most adorable café on the planet, but also the smallest, would not be suitable for her tank-sized stroller. We'd need a bit more of that precious Parisian café real estate if J was to join us.

Close, but no cigar.

We finally found La Marine, just across the canal, and poked our heads in to analyze the situation. Could we fit a stroller in there? We decided yes, and pushed the baby tank through the miniature aisle between tables, parking J in a corner we deemed "out of the way".  Our tarte tatin and café crème arrived and then J decided to poop.

I looked at DF with big eyes - ummm ...what do you do now? Where do you change him?

Again, we thought about it...if there's no changing table in the closet-sized WC, how rude would it be to change him right there in the restaurant? And more importantly, how smelly? What if we offered everyone hand sanitizer right after? Maybe I could create a distraction? Would they even notice?

DF reminded me that then she would have to do something with the dirty diaper, which is when I suggested she change him outside. But she told me it was probably cruel to change a baby outside in the wintertime.

Ohh riiiigghht. That's why she's the mom.

And so, as all Parisian parents must do, DF had to make a crucial decision: to change, or not to change? 

Thankfully, J was a good little sport, realized he probably shouldn't have decided to poop while out in the city, and stuck it out like a champ for the majority of our coffee time. Parisian parents be warned - La Marine is not the place to take a kid in diapers unless it's warm outside!

Is it just me or is my friend the bravest woman on the planet? She drove a 2 MONTH OLD, BY HERSELF into PARIS, PARKED A CAR in the city on a SATURDAY, put together a TANK stroller, breastfed in public, and had to make a decision that no mother should have to make only two months in. 

She deserves a medal.

Step it up Paris - it's no wonder the families are fleeing to the burbs!

Bringing Up Bébé

Recently, while reading A Cup of Jo (great blog - check it out), I came across a post about Pamela Druckerman's book, "Bringing Up Bébé."  It was the first time I'd heard about it, and as a fan of all things French (and all things baby), I not only read the post, but also the comments that went along with it.  

To bring you up to speed, Druckerman, an American expat married to a British expat raised in Holland, embarks on motherhood in France and decides to raise her three children in Paris.  As she struggles through parenting, she observes that the French have a different (better?) way of doing things and decides to investigate. 

My initial reaction after reading the Cup of Jo post was that these parenting techniques were not French, they were simply good parenting.  Then I wanted to know just how long Druckerman had lived in France before coming to her conclusions.  I've been here almost 8 years and the French still confuse me- what were her stats? Was she really an authority on French parenting? After reading this critique in the New York times, in all honesty, I didn't even want to support Druckerman by purchasing her book. But I had to - I wanted to see what the fuss was all about.  Amazon.fr helped me with that, and I was soon the owner of my very own hard-copy of "Bringing Up Bébé."

Maybe it's because I'm also an American in Paris - an expat making a life in France, maybe it's because I'm almost 30 and have babies on the brain, or maybe it's because Druckerman is just a really funny writer, but I loved "Bringing Up Bébé." Though she investigates like a reporter, siting her references and  interviewing experts in the field of child-rearing in France and the US, I didn't really mind that many of the "French parenting techniques" she speaks of were sometimes just simple observations she made in the park or learned more about by speaking with the French mothers she meets at the crèche (daycare center for babies).

She talks about the challenges of finding a spot at the crèche in France, the meaning of caca-boudin - a French "bad word" for five-year-olds, and the many differences between French and American parenting.  A lover of franglais myself, I appreciated that her chapters are perfect translations of French parenting expressions, making sense only to those of us to speak both languages. In other words, when I read the book, I wasn't judging whether or not her claims were supported by enough documentation (such as Meadows, the New York Times reviewer), I just enjoyed reading about her observations as an American raising her kids in France,  learning how to navigate being a parent in a system that is so unlike the one we were raised in - it's something that I may be doing at some point later down the road. 

Druckerman describes how strange/funny/wonderful it is to raise bilingual children whose first reaction when opening a Christmas gift is, "oh la la!" This is something I wonder about as well - how will I feel having children who lean more towards French than English, who grow up eating chocolate bars in baguettes - a typical French gouter! (snack) - and who play in Parisian parks instead of the soccer fields of suburbia? 

I couldn't help but love the book more when Druckerman quotes from Katie Allison Granju, contributor to Babble.com and respected writer of mamapundit, another one of my favorite blogs. She talks about helicopter-parenting, a phenomenon I am all too familiar with, and brings to light the over-the-top, super-human parenting that goes on in the US.  I should know, my mom was what the French call, une maman-taxi - a taxi-mom - shuttling me to dance, my sister to soccer and my brother to football practice, every.single.day. The French don't do this and there may be a good reason why - they don't let being a parent completely take over their lives. (I love my mom for shuttling me around, but I know it was completely and utterly exhausting for her - I'm not sure that I could do it and remain sane). 

It's not without a little cynicism that Druckerman presents all of these techniques and ideas - coming both sides of the Atlantic. Her endearing self-deprecation makes me appreciate her writing even more.  I may even love the fact that she and her family live on the east side of Paris, that she goes into detail about her fears of giving birth in a French hospital and explains the techniques of French health-care-covered perineal reeducation. She may or may not also admit that her entire family uses the French word "prout" instead of "fart," now that they are a little Franco-American brood (am I the only one who still thinks that bathroom humor is funny?) She's relatable, witty, making it work abroad (bravo!), and I'm frankly a little bummed out that I've already finished the book.

photo from Cup of Jo

Maman à Paris

My copine recently revealed to me that she is expecting a petit bout de chou (a little cabbage!). It's early days, so I try not to grill her about all of the details and offer to go baby clothes shopping on weekends - but somehow, we are vite emballée (quickly obsessed), and are chatting away about motherhood, babies, labor (aie!), financial responsibility and being a maman à Paris - being a mom in Paris.

When she announced the great news to her other friend, who already has a 6-month old, she was surprised to hear that she should already be investigating a spot in a crêche - a daycare center.  Over two citron pressé, (freshly squeezed lemonades), we gawked over the jeune maman's comment - a crêche? already? My friend is not even three months along! 

Our conversation got me thinking about being a maman à Paris - how on earth do women do it?  Voilà the things that are plaguing my thoughts:

1. The physical aspect of being pregnant in a city where everyone either walks, metros or Velibs.  There are stairs galore in Paris - I'm surprised women aren't going into early labor everywhere with the number of stairs they must climb just getting out of the Chatelet metro station.

2. The sad reality that most of the parental income will go towards rent in order to have an apartment large enough for a family (with neighbors who probably want to strangle you after 3am crying episodes...or convince the syndic (building manager) to reinforce the thin Parisian apartment walls). In addition to rent, will be the crêche.  Now, in France, families are charged for the crêche on a sliding scale, depending on their income. Families with a higher income pay more, and those with a lower income pay less.  I'm pretty certain that I will be smack dab in the middle - paying the regular, full price. And so will my copine. That my friends, is CHER (expensive). I'm pretty certain that it is nowhere near the cost of daycare in the US, but salaries in France are nowhere near salaries in the US - so voilà. 

3. Getting a spot in said crêche.  While speaking with my colleagues with children there were two cases of crêche: 1 maman had a 4 year-old and a 1.5 year old baby, the other maman had a 9 year-old and a 5 year-old.  Maman 1, at one point, had TWO children in the crêche and was therefore paying a bundle each month - that is, when she finally found a spot for each of her children.  She lived a galère for awhile there, but it finally FINALLY worked out.   Maman 2 had her oldest in the crêche and somehow the stars aligned so that when the older child graduated to school, her youngest took her old spot.  Much less stressful. But you can't always time these things, can you?  No, you cannot.

4. One area where the French have gotten it right is when you are in the hospital.  Women are cared for here in a way that they never could be in the US (unless that had the Daddy Warbucks of insurance plans).  My friend who recently gave birth right next door in the 12th arrondissement, spent 4 days in the hospital after a very healthy, vaginal birth.  She was able to rest, learn how to breastfeed and heal.  While a long hospital visit doesn't sound ideal (it's so nice to be chez soi), I'll bet that women come home in a much better state to begin doing things without the help of the medical staff.  They are surveyed in case there's a problem, and they have professionals on-hand for all of the thousands of questions that must come up as a new mom. In addition to caring for women during the accouchement, is the care they receive AFTER the birth.  Women attend sessions for the réeducation périnéale, meaning less chance of complications later in life. 

5. Beyond the physicality of actually carrying a baby to term in a big city like Paris, is the reality of getting around with a stroller once the baby is born.  How do women do it?! Remember Anabelle Tess' blog post about the bus in Paris?  I probably would have flipped out and cried. The other option is the metro - a gazillion stairs to walk down and then up - and all you can do is A. hope your child and your stroller are not that heavy or B. hope that a good samaritan will stop their rush down the stairs and offer to help you (not easy during 9am rush hour...). I'm always so impressed by these women and I offer to help as often as possible, but I have to say, after one stroller-metro adventure, I'm not sure I would be that motivated to leave my own quartier. I'm not even going to mention the fact that not all apartments buildings have elevators...

Perhaps these things seem less stressful when you actually have a beautiful new baby to enjoy and love, or perhaps you just give in to the reality of it, embrace the situation, and pretend like metro stairs carrying a stroller are a great way to lose all that baby weight.  I tried to reassure my copine (and my future self), but let's face it, being a maman in Paris is hard work n'est pas? 

photo credit