Paris Parenting Pros and Cons and Cons
Is it hard raising a child in Paris? Yes! Is it also wonderful and interesting and beautiful? Yes!
I had an idea I’d been meaning to write about for several weeks now. I thought this week was going to be the week; all signs pointed to it being the week. Only one consulting project due. No meaningful rain in the forecast. Fridge was stocked, so I couldn’t use “errands” as an excuse. It was going to be a very productive writing week.
But I have this child, you see. He’s 21-ish months, a number that only means something if you also have a child, otherwise it’s just annoying to read/hear. Okay, okay, he’s one-and-a-half. And that kinda baby/kinda toddler loves a virus, he can’t get enough of them. And any time I have ambitious plans like “work” or “wash my hair,” he gets sick. Not just a little sick either because he has asthma, so we have to take every cough and fever very seriously lest he become a mouth-breather like myself. And sure enough, he heard I had plans so he decided to get sick this week just to test me.
So I scrapped the other thing I was going to write about and decided to instead write about what was occupying my mind, time, and hands: parenting.
This is a topic I haven’t often explored because I don’t feel enough like a parent to write about it with any authority. Even though I went into the parental project very intentionally with schedules and spreadsheets and apps and charts and puree recipes and data-based books, I still never felt much like a mom. I was just the same me but now I had this baby hanging around. How could I, a child myself who only wants to sleep-in, shop, and drink Aperol Sprtiz, speak to adult things like parenting?
I think it’s Paris’s fault that I feel like a poser parent, which is both a good and bad thing. The city never feels real in the first place: it’s too chaotic and beautiful and dreamy and impossible to be the backdrop for something as tangible and exhausting as raising a real life human child. And yet we’re out there doing it, and for better AND worse, it looks nothing like how my husband and I grew up. Better because it’s fun, it’s convenient, it’s vibrant, it’s connected. Worse because it’s far and dirty and cramped and dangerous.
So because I can’t get a moment to myself this week to think about anything else, let’s talk about parenting in Paris, the pros and cons of raising a child in such a fantastical and complicated place.
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Pro: It’s Fun For ME
I’m not sure if it’s right or wrong for me to do so, but I’ve always made a serious effort not to lose myself entirely inside my role as a mom. Don’t get me wrong, I take my responsibilities as a mom extremely seriously: I bake sugar-free breakfast muffins, I aggregate best practices for each childhood stage from various fact-checked sources, I research toy brands, I cuddle, I listen, I curtail my swearing. When my baby eventually goes to therapy as an adult to talk about whatever I’ve done wrong as a parent, I want to know that it won’t be due to my lack of effort; it will be some other thing I never saw coming, of course.
THAT SAID, I am still the same old Shelby who wants to meet friends at the wine bar downstairs, go to art exhibits, hit my Goodreads goal each year, spend money on things I don’t need. And Paris really helps me do that. It’s compact and has great places to eat and hang on every corner so you don’t have to go far to go out. There is always something happening at museums and galleries and theaters. It’s easy to get a babysitter and the babysitting rate is like 30% of what it is in the US. We have a regularly scheduled babysitter once a week so we don’t forget to do something for ourselves on a regular basis. Then we call her back any other time we have something planned. (Does GenZ not go out? Our babysitters are always available.)
I don’t know about you, but I’m a better parent when I’m not only a parent, and Paris really helps make that possible.
Con: Everything Is Hard
Literally from week 1 of parenthood, it became clear how inconvenient Paris is for raising a child. We had to think through how we would get the baby home from the hospital because we hadn’t yet bought a car seat because we hadn’t yet bought a car. We decided I’d take a taxi since I’d just birthed an entire baby, and my husband would walk with that baby in a carrier the 15 minutes to our apartment. Never in a million years did I think we’d bring our baby home on foot, but that’s indeed what we did.
Yes, some things like going to the store just around the corner or the playground just downstairs are very much easier. But as soon as you have to get to the airport or go to the pediatrician in the rain, stuff gets complicated real fast.
Movement is indeed the hardest part, logistically. With the stroller, the metro is off-limits unless you are two. My husband and I can still carry the petit roi in his throne up and down metro stairs, but I can’t do it on my own; my back ain’t what it used to be since my grossese. I’ve tried the bus with some success, unless it’s raining and crowded with everyone else who had the same idea. Biking is the most convenient, unless it’s raining and becomes dangerous and cold. I’ve spent many a Nounou or creche pick-up plodding through puddles, pushing a soggy pousette, wondering to myself what I’ve done with my life.
Pro: It’s Brimming With Culture
I remember being quite young, like five years old, and wishing I had a cool, artsy, interesting, international lifestyle. I was pretentious and pining even back then. And while I had a very stable and supportive upbringing (yawn), I don’t think I can describe it as particularly cool. Pas grave, none of that matters, right? Well, it does to me because I’m awful.
Luckily we live in Paris, which allows me to give to my child the childhood that I always wanted. He has already seen Brancusi sculptures at the Pompidou that dazzled my imagination when I finally learned about them in undergrad. He took regular nap time strolls in the Jardin des Plantes, a place I was in awe of when I visited at 27 years old. He’s napped at the Natural History Museum, spread his germs all over the Aquarium Tropical and obsessed over the landscaping at the Parc Zoologique. He watched some rugby from the fan zone built at Place de la Concorde after spending the morning strolling around St. Honore and doing a poop at the Cartier store.
Yes, you’re right, he won’t care about any of this at all; he’ll probably grow up and be mad at us for not living in the countryside. But little me is finding some solace in providing these aesthetic treats to someone else.
Con: It’s Dirty
It’s very unnerving to take your child on a walk against a backdrop of (hopefully) dog poo. It’s not an occasional thing, it’s like over a dozen piles per outing. Or at least it is in our particular stretch of the Deep 12eme Arrondissement. I should probably write the Mairie about it, it’s getting out of hand.
I would go days if not months without bearing witness to a street poo in my childhood. My kid sees dozens a day and points and exclaims “caca!” at each one. I wonder what this much scatological access is doing to his developing brain, but I am afraid to google it.
Pro: It’s Loud
At first you might think that loud = bad = wakes up baby, but no. The constant rumbling of the city, the motorcycles, the horn honks, the trash trucks, the loud neighbors all acclimate the baby to noise. Parisian babies can sleep through anything, not like those peace-adoring suburban babies whose first naps weren’t against the sounds of the restaurant downstairs emptying their glass into the bin.
The other benefit to the noisiness of Paris is that it makes your baby seem less so. Baby crying at a restaurant or in a store? No one can probably even hear it, there’s so much other noise going on. I was hyper self-conscious about my baby being loud in public, so I’d take him along for an apero at Place d’Aligre, a wide open square under some trees where children run and play and trash trucks clunk and dump loudly, obscuring my baby’s whines while I wine.
Con: It’s Cramped
I embraced the cramped utilitarianism of city life when we first arrived in Paris. Back in LA I had a spare room as a dressing room and another spare room just for books, but neither made me as happy as living mere steps from a boulangerie.
But once that baby arrived and started moving, sleeping in his own room, touching EVERYTHING, I felt trapped and crowded and depressed.
We were eating where we were playing where we were bathing him where we were relaxing, should he decide to allow us to. We technically had two bedrooms, but we still felt like we were constantly on top of one another, stuffing things into cupboards, contorting our life to fit exactly enough space. I loathed carrying a full collapsable tub to the dining table to bathe him because our bathroom was so small and tub-less. And the thing is, we had more space than a lot of folks I know in Paris, so I didn’t have room for my record collection or to complain.
We were lucky enough to move to a bigger place in a more boring neighborhood to solve this Paris problem, but I’ve heard tales of people who have stuck it out in small spots. Kids with beds in closets, but who do their living (logically) in the living room. Families sharing rooms for years because they’re just for sleeping anyway. Given the market, high prices, and low inventory, it only makes sense. But if you want your living room to look nice, Centre Ville doesn’t cut it. (Unless you manage to snag a massive apartment, in which case, I’m happy for you, I mean it.)
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Pro: It’s Great For Travel
My baby got to swim in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the English Channel all during his first summer. Well, not swim, mostly kind of cry as waves splashed him. But you get my point. Whether by train or car or plane, you can get to Spain for a wedding, Italy for les vacances, Belgium to see the Christmas decor, all quite quickly and inexpensively.
This kid has been to more countries than I went to in the first two decades of my whole life. And we did those trips on long weekends, in the car. If you drive four hours from my hometown, you’re still in California, which explains why it took me so damn long to finally leave the country.
Not to mention all the travel you can do within France itself, which is gloriously beautiful and connected in every direction, speckled with family-friendly aires d’autoroute equipped with changing rooms and play areas and picnic tables. This kid hits up castles and farms and historical sites on the weekend just for fun, imagine.
Con: It’s Far From Family
Yes, France is close to a lot of cool countries, none of which are the west coast of the United States. But I’ve beleaguered that point enough already.
Pro: Less Parental Pressure
With just a few exceptions, I have never felt pressured by parenting culture here in Paris. While there was pressure to not gain weight while pregnant, once the baby was out and about, no one much cared about whether or not I nursed him, if we were doing 100% baby-led weaning or going the hybrid route, if every minute of his day was enriching and maximized with activity or not.
I haven’t experienced it first hand, but I’ve read and heard from friends about a parenting culture in the US that can put pressure on moms to be martyrs to their maternal role, exhaust themselves to optimize every moment of their child’s life. I can’t even count the number of friends who felt pressure to nurse, or to continue to nurse when they wanted to be done with it, for example. Meanwhile I made the decision in relative peace, literally no one commented on it except my baby who was pissed when the milk supplier got changed out.
I don’t know what it is about the parents here that makes them not act like this… maybe just an overall more chill culture? A disdain for optics and overachieving? My observation is that everyone just parents differently and doesn’t talk about it, regardless, which eliminates the impulse to compare. If anything I’m the problem, raising my eyebrows at parents who yell at their kids at the playground.
I did once read an article in The New Yorker about baby-led weaning, and one mom was quoted saying her child will have tried 100 foods before their first birthday. I’m unwell and did a quick tally in my Notes app to ensure my baby would surpass that benchmark. If I were parenting in the US, I’m sure I’d be very toxic to myself and others.
Con: The Playgrounds Are Wild
Not all the time, but sometimes that chill parenting style can lead to kids being raging assholes at the playground. Of course, it’s not their fault, it’s the parents’ faults, that goes without saying. But sometimes, a little girl almost pushes your baby off a ladder, does succeed in twisting his arm until he actually cries out. You firmly but calmly tell her to stop and she ignores you, you search nearby for her parents to eviscerate them in French and English, but they are no where to be found.
In moments like these I long for the helicoptered American playground where kids with twee, overwrought names are at least gently redirected by intentional and present parents. And sometimes that happens at the playground here as well: our kids cut in line at the slide, we say “ah, pardon,” to at least signal to one another that we’re on it, we’ll take care of it, that we are trying not to raise deviants.
But sometimes it’s a little too laissez faire and I have to tell that little girl that you can’t slide directly after my child, you have to wait a sec until he’s off the slide, hoping desperately that my advice will sink in so she stops manifest destiny-ing her way across the playground (for our sake and hers). Little girl: I actually want you to be a bold and unapologetic female juggernaut of doom, but don’t make me have to hate on you at the playground because you hurt my baby; I’m rooting for you.
I’m sure this is the case at playgrounds around the world, but something about Paris’s high concentration of people makes every crowded playground session a little too intense for me. I need to take a break for a while until I’ve recovered from that four year old dressed in all pink that I had to stand up to.
Pro: The Food Is Great
A combination of high access and low BS makes for really great tasting and healthy food in France. There are twice weekly open air markets where you can buy fruits and veggies straight from producers, and our old neighborhood had a market open every day except Monday. Like most of Europe, GMOs are heavily restricted in food production in France, as are artificial dyes, flour bleaching compounds, and a bunch of other ingredients with tricky names that I don’t know much about except that they sound sinister.
The result: I don’t have to work very hard to buy good stuff for my baby to eat, which is nice because I’m too lazy to agonize over labels in my second language.
Paris-based daycares also have some very impressive best practices as far as food sourcing and preparation, with a goal of serving meals that are as local and “bio” (organic) as they can be. According to a Paris city website, “Industrially processed products are very limited and additives, colorings, hydrogenated fats, sweeteners, palm oil, GMOs, etc. are removed from children’s plates.”
The downside of this is he’ll never know the flavor of “caf” pepperoni pizza, the air in the cafeteria heavy with the impending scent of childhood glee. Instead he eats veal and locally sourced veggie salad and actually enjoys beets. Lame.
And don’t get me started on how that daycare is also affordable…
And so…
When I set out to write this, I assumed I was going to have far more cons than pros, probably because my back was aching, it was cloudy and cold out, my child was having a tantrum-forward week, and I was PMS-ing. But as I continued to write, the sun emerged for a gloriously sunny week that reminded Parisians why they do choose to live in Paris. We biked with the baby to a guinguette and shared fries and gaufres, then biked home as the sun set through the trees of the Bois de Vincennes. I finished writing this after an afternoon along the Seine enjoying rosé with some friends (without the baby, who was enjoying ice cream with Papa).
As a short memory is critical to happy parenting, maybe Paris’s greatest pro (or it’s most successful con) is its charm that allows you to quickly forget your troubles and enjoy the moment.
Do you share any of Shelby’s experiences? OR do you disagree with her? Let her know in the comemnts below
Introducing Contributor, Selby Chambers
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