Comments on: cake

By: Vassilios

Vassilios — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 01:01:56 +0000

Nice

By: Eric

Eric — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 22:26:52 +0000

Buon Compleanno petiteanglaise’s little girl :-))

By: Tara

Tara — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 01:16:49 +0000

I work as an au pair in a very bourgeois area of Paris and every day I am just about appalled by what I have come to know as the ‘Marlboro Light Mother’s Club’. I have long noted that for many of the mothers in the park after school their children are little but lapdogs. On one occasion I noticed a toddler, maybe a year old, alone in an empty corner of the park, a parent nowhere to be seen. Concerned, I followed him for about 20 minutes as he wandered. Finally, when he started to frantically look for his mother, I picked him up and took him to the playground area. After a few minutes a typically svelte black-clad French woman finally heard him crying, sighed, stubbed out her cigarette, marched over and tore him from my arms with nary a ‘merci’. Sadly, in my experience, events like this aren’t isolated. I’ve seen kids run out of school and give the nanny a hug then just stare at their mothers, and many children whose mobility is compromised by the ridiculous designer clothing and shoes they are dressed in (does your two year old really need knee-high leather boots?). I sometimes worry about the next generation of the French bourgeoisie…

By: Welsh Cake

Welsh Cake — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 18:09:31 +0000

Having just read the Telegraph article and just returned from a week in France with three of my chidlren I can only hang my head in shame. Every single day I removed them from restaurants as soon as we’d sat down as their behaviour was appalling, especially when their French counterparts sat there, silently and smiling as mine played with the napkins, tore the napkins, fiddled with the wine glasses, threw the menus on the floor, argued, figdeted. It was intolerable. Stuff Super Nanny send me Le Nanny Superb (say it with French accent)…

By: Scottie

Scottie — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 00:23:53 +0000

I’m convinced that in years to come there will be Children of Bloggers groups, who get together and discuss what it was like to ‘grow up on a blog’. When Tadpole is older — and if you are still blogging — do you think you’ll get to a point where you ask her if she minds being featured on your blog?

By: Despina

Despina — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:54:03 +0000

Lovely post! I mentioned you in passing on my own blog today, but of course if this offends you I’ll remove it. I hope you all had a lovely day!

By: Welsh Cake

Welsh Cake — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 15:20:25 +0000

One afternoon, my husband and I went to parents evening at my 4 year old girl’s school.. The teacher showed us her tray and her ‘work’. In her drawing book she had drawn some approximation of a duck with a speech bubble coming from its beak. “Twat, Twat”, it said. At the time she was having trouble with her ‘cuh’ sounds. The teacher was mortified.

By: Anali

Anali — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 14:51:28 +0000

Wow you’re good! I love how slid in the part about the vegetables!!

By: Dumdad

Dumdad — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 14:42:12 +0000

The DT article was an interesting piece of fiction as I’ve never seen that sort of behaviour around here in the banlieue. Nor in Paris when I lived in the 16th or the 11th or the 3rd.

Incidentally, Censored is a strange name to choose for a little girl…..

By: Jack

Jack — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 09:54:47 +0000

This article is a bit less stereotypes-filled than usual British articles about France. The only problem, as you pointed out is that the model of education they describe is far from generalized. It’s not typically a question of upper-class or working-class, it’s much more a question of different styles of families.
I know very bourgeois families where children are brought up as self-centered brats that get all their wishes and working class families where the (quiet)word of a parent is enough to make a child behave.
American-style families do exist in France, but they are still a minority. Another model we share with ango-saxon countries is the single parent household, especially in racial minorities.