Many people claim the best way to learn French is to shack up with a French partner. I think the best way to be forced into French society and day-to-day life is to have a baby. Or two.
Without a kid, the emergency exit is still readily available if needed. You can hang out with your French friends and French partner in places a tourist would never dare set foot in. You can take up smoking. You can even obtain French citizenship. But deep in your soul, you know if you really wanted to, you could still hightail it at any moment to the nearest Five Guys just to feel something.
Not with a kid.
Since having a kid, I have been forced to become well-versed in the French health care system, French newborn care, French vaccination schedules, French breastfeeding norms, the application process for French daycare, and the French schooling system.
All of that is pretty standard parenting stuff. But now I have to make small talk about all of the above in French with French parents, pediatricians, coworkers, pharmacists, HR specialists, and random strangers on the bus who feel compelled to win my children’s approval. These interactions are now a daily part of my life, whereas before, I could just live here and be blissfully unaware of the fact that if you don’t have a trusted AssMat, you’re screwed.
And that’s just the big stuff. The small, everyday French things associated with raising kids is even more bizarre. Have you ever been to a French puppet show? On an artistic level, it’s on par with Studio Ghibli, but on a story level, what the actual fuck? Also: I’ve run into my fair share of mothers here who have a disturbingly laissez faire attitude towards head lice.
As a mom, I am expected to have an encyclopedic knowledge about raising French kids in France. (In reality, I piece together all my knowledge through a carefully curated collection of batshit crazy expat mom Facebook groups.)
So if you want to come to France and experience the vrai Paris, get knocked up. The funny thing is that my kids aren’t technically even French. They have American parents, but now, I spend my days trying to give them the most normal French childhood possible. That means they will never set foot in a Five Guys. Ever.
This is excellent advice! After almost 20 year of living in Italy (married to another American, sigh) I finally figured out the way to really learn Italian is to have an Italian mother-in-law that you have to have lunch with on weekends.