French Toast (7 page)

• My sister-in-law and my mother-in-law phone each other every day and spend almost every weekend together in the country. I adore my mother, but, even if we weren't five thousand
miles apart, I wonder what on earth we could find to say to each other every day.

• A French friend tells me about a woman friend of hers who would never think of buying a pair of shoes without asking her mother's approval. And the friend is fifty years old!

One explanation of the closeness of mothers and daughters is that almost half of the feminine population in France works, and many Frenchwomen have to turn to their mothers for child care (in spite of the excellent system of child-care centers that exists).

Another explanation is that, unlike in the States, many French young people do not travel far to university and either continue to live at home or stay in close physical proximity to their parents. This can also weigh on the daughter. A recent article in a French women's magazine pointed out how truly horrible adolescent daughters can be with their mothers, either by freezing them out or by running away from home—anything to get away from mom. A third explanation, which crosses my mind when I am up against a cold, superior-looking type of Frenchwoman, is that perhaps only their mothers can stand them—shame on me!

Mothers and daughters may have close links, but it doesn't seem to be a very sexy thing to have babies and then spend your life as a professional mother. The good
side of this is that, in general, when you go to a French person's house for dinner, you will be spared the child routine, the horrors, say, of wading through an entire meal with a two-year-old you have to praise every two minutes, because children are really supposed to be seen (and then only at the appropriate time) and not heard.

French mothers seem to be bogged down by the duty side of motherhood (they would probably say that American mothers seem to hone in on the enjoyment part and disregard the discipline side). They bring the kids up, dress them well (my kids looked like ragamuffins compared with French kids, because they were dressed for fun, and fun for toddlers means dirt), feed them well, make sure they work well at school. The motherhood job seems to be a serious one indeed. An example: When I dropped my kids off at primary school, my parting words for the day always were, “Have fun!” Next to me, I would hear the French mothers admonishing their children to “be good”
(sois sage). Voilà la différence
.

Then there is the French mother-in-law. Since I have one (and we get along famously), I can say that there is only one real problem, and that is that she is French and I am American; so I am always wondering whether she is doing what she is doing because she is French, because she is my mother-in-law, or just because she'd do it anyway. (She's probably asking herself the same about me.)

Example: the lesson on how to wash leeks. My mother-in-law tells me they are to be split lengthwise, as opposed to being snipped up brutally, the way I do it. Salads: Wash them at least six times so there is no dirt left. Tomatoes: Don't just dump them into boiling water, as I do, and leave them to their fate; position them gently on a fork and swirl them around. And last but not least: dates. Never bite into a date without opening it up first. There might be a horrible insect or a worm in there. My love of dates has been spoiled forever.

Would an American mother-in-law have inculcated all these food tips in me? Of course, food is sacred to the French, and an American wife is always vaguely suspected of either poisoning her husband or allowing him to starve. Early on in my marriage, I invited my in-laws to visit us in our town, which is far from Paris. When my mother-in-law arrived with a baked chicken, I knew we still had a culture gap to close! (In her defense, I know now that she was just trying to save me trouble, but at the time, I think I had the persecution complex that many Americans married to Frenchmen have, and I entertained the darkest notions.)

The phone. I have been trying for years to communicate the fact that even if I lived in the same town with my mother in the States, I probably wouldn't call her every single day, not because I don't want to talk to her, but because I don't feel a duty to do that any more than she feels a duty to call me. My mother-in-law assents, but I
know that in her heart of hearts she finds it hard to believe.

The American woman who has decided to marry a Frenchman and have his children is always conscious of the fact (whether she is made to feel conscious or she just feels conscious is another story) that, first of all, she took a man who could have married someone of his own nationality, and, second, she is not who she is but who the French think she is. Even her children think she is strange. I have suspected this for a long time in my own family as I watch the amused, tolerant, and sometimes embarrassed looks my boys cast at me when I am being so “un-French” in front of their French friends.

French sociologist Gabrielle Varro confirmed this for me when she wrote in her very interesting study
La femme transplantée: Une étude du mariage franco-américain en France et le bilinguisme des enfants (The Transplanted Woman: A Study of the Franco-American Marriage in France and the Bilingualism of Children)
that “in fact, the forty-year-old American woman is often much more ‘extroverted,' more enthusiastic and demonstrative than her thirteen or fifteen year old child, who is exposed to an entirely different style of behavior and who has moreover a tendency to judge his American mother's behavior as extravagant and puerile.” Varro is talking about the American woman who grew up in the United States in the fifties—but from my own experience, I could say that holds true of others, as well.

My kids were so afraid I would embarrass them that they would loudly announce the arrival of a friend the first half second they were in the door. “JEAN-PIERRE IS WITH ME,” my oldest would yell, hoping I wouldn't be singing at the top of my voice or guffawing over the phone. He would then whisk the visitor back to his room and, later, whisk him out the door just as quickly.

In addition to mastering the Frenchwoman, I had to master the stereotype that some Frenchwomen have of American women. One popular French stereotype of the American woman is a lady with rollers in her hair and a rolling pin in her hand to bang on her husband's head should he dare get out of line. Her husband, of course, has been castrated a long time ago by this she-devil. This stereotype was reinforced by Lorena Bobbitt.

At a luncheon with a group of Parisian intellectuals, the conversation turned to American women. The Frenchwoman sitting at my left posed the inevitable question: “Is it true,” she asked in feigned innocence, “that American women are loud and domineering?”

Had I been French, I would have immediately responded with something witty. But not having learned how to be what the French call
spirituel
—that is, how to let 'em have it without appearing heavy—I did not rise to the occasion.

If you live in France for any length of time, you need
to cultivate the art of being
vache. Vache
(yes, it means “cow”!) is a word that encompasses the concepts of petty, mean, spiteful. And just as, at their best, Frenchwomen can be witty, charming, and endlessly feminine, knowing how to converse, how to receive, how to dress, at their worst they can be
vache
. Even being
vache
is subtle. It is knowing how to utter that little phrase that can be interpreted however one wants. It is knowing how to send the dart without being transparently offensive.

Examples of
vache
comments include: “Oh, I like those living room curtains. I put the same ones in my little girl's bedroom.” Or, a younger woman admiring an older woman's new diamond ring: “Ah,
l'alliance de la quarantaine
” (a ring your husband buys when you hit forty and he can finally afford it). Or how about “I've always loved you in that dress”?

Then there's the way Frenchwomen wear clothes. It's not that they have more clothes or better clothes. It's just that they manage to do something with them that ends up looking chic. My friend Anne-Marie has only about three outfits to her name, but she manages to make myriad different looks by cleverly using accessories. Of course this is a stereotype about Frenchwomen. Obviously, not all Frenchwomen know how to dress, but it is true that the ones who do know really understand what to do with little.

I love to watch Frenchwomen shop. They can be so terribly hostile. In a boutique one day, a more than middle-aged woman stooped to try on a pair of shoes. They didn't please her. The saleswoman brought another pair, and another. The lady looked her in the eye and boomed, “You aren't going to impose your taste on me. I'm the one who's imposing around here.” I almost would have taken the poor saleslady's side if I hadn't remembered that, before the economic recession set in, you would go in to buy a pair of shoes and if you didn't walk out with a pair, even if they pinched your feet and looked terrible, you were treated like the poor cousin of someone's poor cousin.

I have observed that Frenchwomen do have a thing for shoes. On vacation with an American couple and a French couple, I watched the Frenchwoman tiptoe over ancient Turkish ruins in dainty open-toed heels, while the American woman and I clodded around in our dirty tennis shoes. Guess who looked better? By the same token, I have yet to see a French woman executive trodding along the streets of Paris in a business suit and tennis shoes. I decided to try out the nice shoe look one day and dressed in slacks and heels. The reaction of my American friends: “You've gone native!”

I love clothes and shoes, and I love the way the Frenchwomen select and wear them. But I must admit I quake upon entering boutiques. I steel myself for the
saleswoman's inevitable lines: “This is the last belt [or skirt, or top] I have; you'd better take it.” Or “I have the same belt [or skirt, or top].” I refrain from answering that if she has the same, I certainly don't want it. I note, as the years pass, that either I am getting bigger or the dresses and skirts are getting smaller. The French equivalent of size eight would seem to be the ideal dress size in France. A twelve is just all right, and a fourteen is bringing us to Elephant Land. What do you expect in a country where women pay so much attention to their
ligne
and their
toilette
?

Presumably, unlike me, Frenchwomen don't break out in a cold sweat when contemplating the joyous experience of shopping for clothes. They might, however, break out in a cold sweat, hives, or something else when they contemplate their horrendous underrepresentation in the National Assembly. Only 6 percent of the National Assembly is composed of women. In “macho” Spain, it's over twice that. Still, while a lot of Frenchwomen would like to be better represented, they aren't taking to the streets, and they don't hate the men who are there in their place.

Actually, maybe they should take to the streets. But then, horror of horrors, they might start resembling American feminists! That, one can fairly presume, is not something to which any Frenchwoman would aspire.

Interview with Philippe

HARRIET:
What difference do you think there would be if, instead of being married to an American woman, you were married to a Frenchwoman?

PHILIPPE:
We wouldn't have a parliamentary debate on women's equality every morning before breakfast. She would just take control without saying a word
.

HARRIET:
What about issues such as who packs the bags?

PHILIPPE:
She would do it, and make me pay for it without my ever knowing it
.

HARRIET:
What's another difference?

PHILIPPE:
Frenchwomen will leave you alone when they see you are tired. For example, a Frenchwoman wouldn't persist in an interview like this when she sees how wiped out I am after a week of work. You, on the other hand, would interview me on my deathbed
.

HARRIET:
And yet another difference?

PHILIPPE:
Only American women marry four times, kill off four husbands, and then go off to Europe and have fun
.

HARRIET:
Okay. Okay. Why is it that if a man is loud in France, no one pays any particular attention, but if a woman speaks or laughs loudly, everyone turns around and stares at her?

PHILIPPE:
Because women are supposed to be more refined than men. Equality of sex in the States means that women should be as stupid as men
.

HARRIET:
Sexist
. . .