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" Babies aren't savages. Toddlers understand language long before they can talk. "

Pamela Druckerman

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" The question on my husband's birthday is always, What do you get for the man who has nothing? "

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" In the English books, the American kids' books, typically, there is a problem, the characters grapple with that problem, and the problem is resolved. "

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" Podcasts immersed me in colloquial English and put me back in the American zeitgeist. "

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" Usually, I'm so self-absorbed that my companion could be bleeding to death, and I might not notice. "

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" Practically every time I speak up at a school conference, a political event, or my apartment building association's annual meeting, I'm met with a display of someone else's superior intelligence. "

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" Even for natives, French satire is rarely laugh-out-loud funny. Its unspoken punch line is typically that things have gone irrevocably wrong, and the government is to blame. "

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" French children seem to be able to play by themselves in a way. "

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" I hear people in their 20s describe the 40s as a far-off decade of too-late, when they'll regret things that they haven't done. But for older people I meet, the 40s are the decade that they would most like to travel back to. "

Pamela Druckerman

" As an American married to an Englishman and living in France, I've spent much of my adult life trying to decode the rules of conversation in three countries. Paradoxically, these rules are almost always unspoken. "

Pamela Druckerman

" I've gotten used to being a foreigner. "

Pamela Druckerman

" Soon after Donald Trump was inaugurated, I got a letter from France's interior ministry informing me that I was now French. By the time it arrived, I'd been French for nearly two weeks without even knowing it. "

Pamela Druckerman

" I'm speaking in very broad brushstrokes, but in France, there's generally this idea that you should look like the best version of the age that you are. "

Pamela Druckerman

" In my 40s, I expect to finally reap the average-looking girl's revenge. I've entered the stage of life where you don't need to be beautiful; simply by being well-preserved and not obese, I would now pass for pretty. "

Pamela Druckerman

" I've got letters from all over the world saying what you're describing as American parenting is Chilean middle-class parenting, or it is Finnish middle-class parenting, or it is Slovak middle-class parenting. "

Pamela Druckerman

" Just do what you want more often. Don't be so worried about what other people expect. "

Pamela Druckerman

" Just as dressing well in your forties entails making choices that reflect who you are and not just wearing generic basics, looking good as you get older requires accentuating and enjoying what's specific to you rather than striving for cookie-cutter perfection. "

Pamela Druckerman

" I spent most of my adolescence feeling awkward but never once mentioned it. "

Pamela Druckerman

" When people used to ask me what I missed about America, I would say, 'The optimism.' I grew up in the land of hope, then moved to one whose catchphrases are 'It's not possible' and 'Hell is other people.' I walked around Paris feeling conspicuously chipper. "

Pamela Druckerman

" If you want to know how old you look, just walk into a French cafe. It's like a public referendum on your face. "

Pamela Druckerman

" The French view is really one of balance, I think... What French women would tell me over and over is, it's very important that no part of your life - not being a mom, not being a worker, not being a wife - overwhelms the other part. "

Pamela Druckerman

" I'm a third-generation Miamian. I'm fond of it. I'm an expatriate, so it's the only American city I can still legitimately claim. "

Pamela Druckerman

" I gradually understood why European mothers aren't in perpetual panic about their work-life balance and don't write books about how executive moms should just try harder: Their governments are helping them - and doing it competently. "

Pamela Druckerman

" When my kids correct my cultural missteps, I sometimes suspect that they're not embarrassed, they're gleeful. "

Pamela Druckerman

" And as a mother of three with a full-time job, podcasts gave me the illusion of having a vibrant social life. I was constantly 'meeting' new people. My favorite hosts started to seem like friends: I could detect small shifts in their moods and tell when they were flirting with guests. "

Pamela Druckerman

" Eating among the French certainly affected me. After a few years here, I gave up most of my selective food habits. "

Pamela Druckerman

" One of the maddening things about being a foreigner in France is that hardly anyone in the rest of the world knows what's really happening here. They think Paris is a socialist museum where people are exceptionally good at eating small bits of chocolate and tying scarves. "

Pamela Druckerman

" Teach your kids emotional intelligence. Help them become more evolved than you are. Explain that, for instance, not everyone will like them. "

Pamela Druckerman

" Every time I pass a cafe, I imagine it being stormed by men with Kalashnikovs. "

Pamela Druckerman

" Being an immigrant mother can be hard, but being a poor immigrant mother is much harder. You don't generally get to sit in cafes polishing your French by reading 'Le Monde.' "

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" Optimism - even, and perhaps especially in the face of difficulty - has long been an American hallmark. "

Pamela Druckerman