How do the French bring up their children?

“I have two vivid memories from the beginning of my life in France, and they are associated with French children.

… Slowly wandering along the bank of the Baiz River. The mood, as the French say, is comme si, comme ça (neither this nor that). A little below the path behind the bushes, children play, shouting and din. Suddenly a black curly head rises above the bushes: “Bonjour, madam!” – with a dazzling smile of a man who is content with his small but so energetic life. Other children’s heads jumped up after them, and the children happily scribbled at random: “Bonjour! Bonjour, Madame!” And after all, they did not see me, but only heard, but were not too lazy, got up a little to say hello. You can, of course, say as much as you like that they are not doing this from the heart, but because it is so accepted, and there is no warmth in these wishes. This is a very paradoxical argument of many of my compatriots, who profess the principle: “Die, but do not give up a smile without love!” But … It just became lighter and warmer in my soul. As if a ray of sun peeked through the clouds. It would seem, why? Just because they greeted you.

The second impression is of a different kind. Our friends have a four-year-old baby. Several times I see him running around in the fall with a huge green snot through his lip. Finally I decide to tell his mother: “You know, I have a good idea of ​​what sinusitis is, such snot is his sign. You should go to the doctor. ” “No, what are you! It will pass! ” – Mom frivolously shrugs it off. Well, yes, by the summer, it seems, had passed …

Two situations perfectly demonstrate the basics of French education. This is a combination of two contradictory, from the point of view of Russian mothers, principles, namely, the severity of social education and a rather careless attitude towards the very fact of birth and having a child. The attitude to the child here is not as a precious vessel over which mom, dad, grandmother and grandfather are shaking, but as the same family member, for whose sake life does not change, although it is enriched with new colors and emotions.

Having children for a French woman is not at all a reason to change her lifestyle. At the same time, all my friends working French women have an average of three children. Arriving in France with my head hammered with some clichés about the “demographic decline of Europe”, I expected to see one child in French families. No matter how it is! Three children – and this is not the limit. At the same time, it is not customary to dump a child on nannies. “How so?” – you ask.

And the child is simply always and everywhere they take with them. He, two months old, lies in a stroller near a table in a restaurant where parents are having a romantic dinner late at night by candlelight. He, older, always accompanies his parents at lunches and dinners in a restaurant – and where else to consolidate the education of good manners at the table? All French restaurants for children have a special children’s menu, which is usually half the price of an adult at a price tag. Usually it contains some simple dishes that children love: spaghetti, burgers, minced meat steaks (they are also cutlets). He is in a sling backpack, three months old, traveling with his mother along the mountain trails of Corsica or the coast of Costa Rica (yes, I saw it myself). If guests come, then the children are not at all a reason to end the evening early or put them to bed before the end of the suare. They are seated at the table together with the whole honest company, even if the hands of the clock by the time the guests arrived, stopped at 10 o’clock in the evening.

The sister of a French friend, a top manager of a Paris bank, adopted three children, brothers and sisters in Russia. And, returning with them from Siberia, I decided to see St. Petersburg (why not do two things at once, if you are already in Russia?). So I drove on the way to Paris to the Russian northern capital with three newly adopted children of 7, 4 and 2 years old! Without any knowledge of the Russian language. Courageous woman! Incidentally, the impressions of the children, including, were unforgettable.

The French child, in fact, lives and survives according to the general laws of the natural world. No greenhouse conditions are created for him. Even before birth. No preservation of pregnancy, when mothers are under supervision in a hospital for months, does not exist in France. Survived in the womb – good. Did not survive – ce la vie.

Children are not wrapped up. Doctors advise keeping the child, starting from birth, at a temperature of + 18 °, as this is the optimal temperature for health.

But the most extraordinary thing is that the French, with their one of the best social guarantees in Europe, have paid maternity leave only 4 months! If you are giving birth to your third child, you can already count on 26 weeks, that is, a little over six months. In the difficult Soviet times, I remember, our parents also sent us to a nursery for two months.

If you think that this is the subject of indignation of French women and their struggle for their rights, then you are deeply mistaken. This is NORMAL: a French woman does not want to sacrifice her work and her fulfilling social life. Four months of the decree can be disposed of independently. Usually a French woman takes two months before the baby is born and two months after.

From three months old babies are waiting for crashes – French nurseries. French women believe that this is a great tool for socializing children. There is not enough space for everyone in crashes, so the French women get out on their own as best they can. The state does not bother them in this. For example, parental crashes are created when parents register an association, where they hire professionals as well. Such an association can receive additional social assistance from the state.

You can simply share the care of the child with another mother, this is called garde partagée: mothers make a schedule, when one is working, the other is sitting with the children.

And I personally knew a young mother who three times a week drove her two-month-old daughter 150 km from Toulouse to Tarbes (300 km there and back!), Since she taught economics in Tarbes, and lived in Toulouse. Her parents lived in Tarba, with whom she left her daughter for the hours of her teaching.

Grandparents are a separate topic. The French grandmother is neutral. In everything! She does not give parenting advice. Does not take the child if “there is no one to leave him with.” “There is no one to leave with” – such a phrase does not exist for a French mother. At first I did not understand: how is it impossible to leave a child with grandparents for just a week of vacation for a mother who wants to go to rest? Especially when grandmother and grandfather are retired and live in a large castle, where there is enough space for a pioneer camp for children. Not once did my friend Ann leave her three children with their parents. She was only sincerely surprised: “Do you leave them with your grandmothers in Russia?”

The French grandmother exists to host Sunday dinners. On Sunday, the whole big family – children with their families and their children – often gather at their parents’ house. Here grandmothers non-intrusively participate in upbringing: they instill in their grandchildren the good manners of old France at the table, in communication. And I must say that this kind of nepotism works very well! The question here is regularity.

The regularity of an event is already a ritual to be followed. And rituals are the cement of French nepotism. For example, the ritual is to send grandparents photographs of grandchildren: this one is at the moment of birth, and that one is at 6 months old, the next one is “our dudu” in one year! For Christmas, you can send a wall calendar: every month – different photos of your beloved grandchildren. This is how a French grandmother sees her grandchildren growing up, especially if the children live far away.

The ritual is for the whole large family to kiss each other twice, three times (in Provence – four times). In children, kisses are brought to automatism. But be that as it may, kisses upon meeting give that charge of warmth, which then hovers over the family table.

“Bonjour, madame, bonjour, monsieur” is a code phrase that will distinguish a modern French child from any other. For example, English. Yes, we must say bonjour to all aunts and uncles: French mothers do not at all share the principles of free direct socialization. Teaching children to etiquette, to rituals of courtesy – this is the cornerstone of French education. A French mother, if a son or daughter forget the “magic word”, can indicate, pull up – she trains, in one word. But one “but”: it never happens not only with a yell (if you yell at a child, it can cause a natural shock in a public place), but even without raising your voice!

“Oh, ma puce (there is a diminutive – CM), you forgot to kiss Claudine tante,” sings the French mom. And such an educational manner – only with tenderness, only affectionately – works! Ma pyuse immediately, with redoubled fervor, begins to kiss her aunt, whom she sees for the first time in her life.

When I was surprised that they never and nowhere in France raise their voices and strive to speak only in a neutral tone, I realized that it was simply brought up from infancy. Very often, when a child starts talking loudly, raises his voice, trying to express the emotions that have overwhelmed him (often positive: surprise, admiration, passion for a movie, a game), mom or dad immediately notice him: “Doucement, doucement, ma poule” (calmly, softer, my chicken). Raising your tone is not customary, learn to express the whole gamut of feelings in an undertone, without affects. This is France. Therefore, for example, I immediately unmistakably determine whether an English child is on the beach or in a store, even if he speaks French.

French kids don’t do anything without permission. As I already wrote, in France there is a cult of food at a strictly allotted time – breakfast, lunch and dinner. Death snacks are similar. Therefore, a French child, for example, is not aware of such “anarchist manners” of Russian children, how to easily open the refrigerator and look for something tasty there. Opening the refrigerator, and often turning on the TV, is possible only with the permission of the parents.

Ma puce is my flea, ma bullet, ma pulett is my chicken, ma cocote is my coquette, mont chaton is my kitten, mont trezor is my treasure, as well as fofol fofolle, pichun pitchoune, ma choupette choupette (choupetta) – whatever Diminutive words are not used by the French when it comes to a child! Lulu, lulut, jojo – and these are just untranslatable interjections, apparently from an excess of feelings.

Dudu is the most frequently used diminutive appeal to both the child and the beloved woman, it comes from the name of the child’s favorite toy. Every French child has his own fetish object, with which he never parted. He falls asleep, hugging him to himself, walks, holding in his hands, goes with him on vacation with his parents. Sometimes it comes down to what wears to school. And even if this dudu becomes crumpled, worn out, his eyes are erased and his ear is torn off, our dudu will never exchange his dudu for a new beautiful friend.

French psychologists write entire dissertations about the phenomenon of the children’s dudu. It is not advised to impose on the child another toy: he likes to touch and breathe the smell of only his own pipe, and this gives the child a sense of security and safety, I read in one psychological study.

And how many copies were broken on the question of at what age the child should be weaned from the dudu! At two years old, one well-known pediatrician categorically claims. No, it’s too cruel, others say, it’s possible at five or six. I read to the point that it turns out that if your child is 8 (!) Years old is too attached to his pipe and cannot fall asleep without it, then it is worth contacting a child psychiatrist. You are simply amazed at the intensity of passions around such a small dudu.

And the most beautiful thing for me in raising children in France is the kissing ritual at night. Mom and Dad MUST kiss their fofol and pichun before going to bed. Even if the guests have gathered and the festive dinner with the children is over, but the suare is still in full swing, dancing and dust is a pillar – all the same, children come, come up to mom and dad in turn and kiss them.

It turns out that the severity of French upbringing goes hand in hand with a very attentive and reverent attitude towards the inner world of the child. And if you talk to children in any situations, even prohibitive ones, in an affectionate voice and not in an irritated tone (and be sure to kiss goodnight!), Then any strictness and adherence to the rules will be perceived as true and correct.

This also manifests itself in another quality of French moms, which I see everywhere. French women generally accept their husband’s child from a previous family as their own. It is even a matter of honor for a French woman – for her husband’s child to love her like his mother. Usually children of divorced spouses spend half of their time with their father and half of their time with their mother, ex-wife. New wives accept them and include them in their lives on an equal basis with their children: the same distribution of rights, the same range of responsibilities and, most importantly, the same amount of affection and diminutive words both in the direction of their own and in the direction of the husband’s child. French women rightly believe that children are not to blame for anything and they just need to be loved. No matter who their moms and dads are.

Recently my friend Annik with such condemnation (which is completely uncharacteristic for a Frenchman to express condemnation) spoke about one of our acquaintances who, in Russian speaking, took her husband away from the family. The former spouses divided the stay of the two children into weeks: one week the children live with one ex-spouse, and the other week with the other. But when his children come to live with a man, the new wife is nice to them, but she folds their clothes for washing separately and does not really cook, saying: “These are his children, let him take care of them!”

– And after that she also asks why they do not love her! – Annik is indignant.

Yes, indeed, this is an offense condemned by public opinion in France. Even if love for other people’s children did not wake up in you, it is customary to be caring and affectionate towards them. Internal discipline. Comil’fo.

And … education and work will grind everything! Cecile adopted a Russian child. She talks about the importance she has always attached to instilling courtesy and etiquette in her son. But now, resorting to her in painting classes, Pascal (and his face, you will not believe it, is absolutely Russian, chubby and snub-nosed!), Throws open the door with all his might, shouting loudly from the doorway to all her fellow students: “Bonjour, honey! Comment allez-vous? (How are you?) “- and all the ladies melt …