OVERSEAS BRIEFING

Author: ANNABELLE CAZES

PARIS - Upon waking up late one morning, I realized that all I had left to replenish my energy was some instant coffee, a few heart-shaped sugar cubes and a package of slimy lamb's lettuce. So I forced myself out the door and headed down to the corner grocery store, a modest alternative to the upscale Monoprix. On the walk down there, I was passed by a mother and her seven-year-old daughter, and overheard the mother scolding her daughter for dragging her feet.

"Mathilde, il ne faut pas trainer tes pieds, sinon, tu n'auras pas une jolie démarche quand tu seras femme, et pour être une JOLIE femme, il faut avoir une jolie démarche."

[translation] "Mathilde, you shouldn't drag your feet, otherwise you won't have a nice gait when you become a lady, and to be a PRETTY lady, you must have a pretty gait."

Having heard this, I thought to myself, "Have I ever heard an American mother tell her daughter to work on having a nice bearing for the purposes of looking good when she's older?" True, any mother might tell her kids not to drag their feet, but this is typically not followed by referencing how this will be a detriment to his or her adult life.

This little episode reminded me of many other instances where in France, childhood just seems to be viewed as one long preparation for adulthood. For example, at an early age, kids are taught a very structured approach to dining, which is part cultural and also part playing grown-up.

They are taught to always have the appetizer-entrée-cheese-dessert-coffee sequence at dinner, since to alter this order would be considered a serious faux pas. Just the other day at the local bakery, I overheard a little girl asking her dad if they could have goat cheese/sun-dried tomato tartelettes as an appetizer. I don't think even I knew what a sun-dried tomato was until the age of 13.

Even from a clothing standpoint, I see French girls parading around in Petit Bateau shirts - classy, monotone cotton tees, which are advertised as kids' clothing, but are actually worn by Parisian women as well, since they are tiny enough to fit in them. Even the seven-year-old French boy who I baby-sit wears a smoking jacket while he's at home - a smoking jacket to keep him toasty while doing his homework. And he doesn't even smoke - at least I hope not.

It just seems to me that the French adults are rushing the kids into adulthood, when the kids just want to be kids. In America, the closest equivalent is Gap Kids, which is not quite as prevalent on the street.

At the moment the mother finished telling her daughter about the démarche, I walked by with a slight limp as I seem to have done something to my hip while jogging a couple of days ago. Oh well. I guess by French standards, my démarche gets un zéro.