When my French husband and I moved from California to France with our three-month-old, it was specifically so our family could be bilingual. Back then, I thought raising our kids as native speakers of two languages would be awesome for them, and while it would mean I’d be less equipped to help with their French homework, I’d otherwise be a pretty competent parent.
What I would learn is that language is broader than I realized. Math has its own language, as does handwriting.
Meaning: my competence was tested early.
French kids learn what we call cursive straightaway, rather than starting with printing, and teachers take penmanship very seriously. Kindergarteners are given fountain pens, and I’m a little surprised they aren’t made to use the kind you have to dip in ink.
My older daughter’s name is Cora, and when she was practicing writing her name at home, I corrected her: “We want to connect the ‘o’ to the ‘r’,” I told her. “So what you’re going to do is to start the ‘r’ from the top of the ‘o’ like this.” She looked at my version of her name and said,
That’s not how my maîtresse told me to do it.”
Actually, I’m translating as always; she probably said, “Ce n’est pas comme ma maîtresse told me to do it.”
I solicited the advice of my mother-in-law, who told me she was taught to pick up her pen after letters that ended above the line and to start the next letter below.
But that was sixty years ago, maybe things have changed.”
Soon after, we happened to have a meeting with both my daughters and their maternelle teachers. I could get this question sorted once and for all. The two teachers and I wrote Cora on a piece of paper. My five-year-old was right: she was supposed to pick up her pen at the top of the ‘o’.
From then on, I knew kids were going to show me how things were done, not the other way around.
More shocking than the cursive o to r is the way French people write out long division and carry the one in subtraction. It’s somehow opposite to how we do it in America. My girls have tried to explain their systems, but I’m a slow learner. If someone has a question on their math homework, I can’t just look over their shoulder; I have to sit down and work out the problem my own way.
This is humbling. As a parent, you imagine you’ll have a certain amount of time as a perceived ‘expert,’ before your kids eclipse you with their understanding of technology, matrix multiplication, and Billie Eilish B-sides. When you’re parenting in a different country from where you grew up, that window is exceedingly narrow. In fact, it approaches infinity, just like your understanding of what a matrix even is.
For a while, my language acquisition outpaced my older daughter’s, since she was an infant, but by first grade, she was leaving me in the dust. When her teacher handed out the weekly schedule at a parent-teacher meeting, I understood why. The students were spending ten hours a week on French, compared to five hours a week on math. Ten hours a week! I couldn’t compete with that.
While we Americans are having a good old time doing creative writing, reading for fun, and handing in the occasional book report, French students are slaving away over the Bescherelle, learning how to classify subordinate prepositions according to their nature.
I’d thought, given enough time, I’d master French. I’d know arcane grammar rules, out-there conjugations, the most elevated vocabulary, and even some dirty words.
What I have witnessed—and what I’ve been told by more than one French person—is that the language is not something that can be mastered. It has to be lived with, played with, sometimes negotiated with. Even the best-educated native speakers will make grammar and spelling mistakes in an email. Spoken French is highly simplified, leaving a person like me sweating over adding back in all those ‘ne’s before the ‘pas’ when writing, and asking her kids to proofread her text messages.
My lack of knowledge has turned out to be the best teacher of what it is to be French. You might think that with their high standards in food, fashion, language, art, and indeed every aspect of life, French people would aim for perfection. But it’s the opposite: the standards are so high, perfection isn’t possible.
For my generation in America, not only was perfection possible, it was expected. A good student got straight-A’s, period. So when my daughter got a 15/20 on an exam this year, I gave her a hard time until she, her dad, and her sister all pushed back. “Fifteen is a good grade for this class with this teacher,” my daughter insisted. My husband reminded me that before I could judge, I needed to ask the average grade on the exam. The average was fourteen. (All French grades are out of 20 points—something else I’ve had to learn).
As the French saying goes: Twenty is for God, Nineteen is for the teacher, Eighteen is for a perfect exam.
Perfection is withheld. Even a completely “correct” test has room for improvement. Therefore, perfection is never the goal; growth is the goal.
It allows for a both-ness that I find helpful. A good student can get a bad grade. A well-read native French speaker can make a spelling mistake. A person like me can, after more than a decade, speak fluent but imperfect French. Everyone can understand me; I want everyone to understand me better.
Thank goodness for the refuge of my family, where we can speak whatever language we feel like. English is supposedly the language of our home, but what my kids actually speak is Franglais. There are just too many specific words to translate, and after a long day of school, why bother?
If my husband feels the kids are leaning too heavily on French, he’ll interrupt to ask if they know a word in English. It’s true that sometimes they actually have forgotten the word “to jump,” and that’s why they’re saying they “saut-ed on the trampoline.” (Sauter is to jump). But I indulge their Franglais because I love the creativity of English conjugations of French words and the joy of reaching for the best word, regardless of language. Also, because I think, who else would really understand what this kid is saying?
Our Franglais, like any unofficial hybrid, is spontaneous and specific to us. It’s our own little family language. Because yes, my husband and I use it, too.
I dreamed that by living in France, we would become a perfectly bilingual family, but we’ve turned out to be an imperfectly trilingual family. We speak French, English, and Franglais.
Despite holding both passports, we’re neither fully French nor fully American. Perfection isn’t possible. It’s maybe not even the goal.
When I stopped caring about reaching some ideal state, I was able to appreciate who we actually are: people who smile too much to be French but care too much about lunch to be American.
People who know there are multiple ways to carry the one.
Last night we went for a family walk, and my older daughter needed to stop to tie her shoe, so she asked us to “Attends, wait.”
She’s been saying “attends, wait,” since she was a toddler, when repetition was the name of the game. All parents repeat words with their babies. We repeated ours in two languages. Strawberry, fraise. Nap, dodo. Stop, arrêt. At three, our daughter was always asking us to attends, wait, for something. At thirteen, she’s doing it still.
I think she will say it always.
I think she will say it toujours.
Elizabeth
What’s the most humbling thing your kids (or grandkids) have taught you about life in another country or culture?
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