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" 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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" I'm not an early adopter. I'll only start wearing new styles of clothing once they're practically out of date, and I won't move into a neighborhood until it's fully saturated with upscale coffee shops. "

Pamela Druckerman

Coffee

Clothing

Early

" My family was once invited to lunch at a chateau owned by a friend of a friend. As we drove our rental car up to the giant castle, my kids gasped and said, 'They must be rich!' "

" When I left for college, I put Miami behind me and tried to have a life of the mind. I got a graduate degree. I traveled. I even married a fellow writer, whose only real estate was a dingy one-bedroom apartment in Paris, where we lived. "

Pamela Druckerman

Mind

Real Estate

" The French aren't known for being hilarious. When I told Parisians I was interested in French humor, they'd say 'French what?' "

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

" 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. "

" When you're the foreigner and your kids are the natives, they realize you're clueless much sooner than they ordinarily would. I'm pretty sure mine skipped the Mommy-is-infallible stage entirely. "

" I've never gotten a good idea while checking Twitter or shopping. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

" I spend much of my free time listening to podcasts of American comedians talking to each other. "

" Earnestness makes British people gag. "

" Unlike the time sink of binge-watching a TV series, podcasts actually made me more efficient. Practically every dull activity - folding laundry, applying makeup - became tolerable when I did it while listening to a country singer describing his hardscrabble childhood, or a novelist defending her open marriage. "

Pamela Druckerman

Time

Childhood

" It's refreshing to have some time off from wondering whether I look fat. "

" In your 40s, you kind of know how things are likely to go, and you're better at saying, 'You know what? That just doesn't suit me...' I remember thinking in my 30s, 'I should go to Burning Man. I could be a Burning Man person.' And in my 40s, I'm like, 'You know what? I'm never going to go to Burning Man.' "

" Having lived in America and France, I've been on both sides of the picky-eating divide. "

" When I was 41, I had a very bad back pain, and it turned out to be Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. "

" Early childhood offerings vary, but everywhere in Europe and in Canada, they're far more generous than in the United States. Ukrainian dads may not change enough diapers, but their government offers paid maternity leave; practically free preschool; and per-baby payments equivalent to eight months of an average salary. "

" The overarching conventional wisdom - what everyone from government experts to my French girlfriends take as articles of faith - is that restrictive diets generally don't make you healthier or slimmer. Instead, it's best to eat a variety of high-quality foods in moderation and pay attention to whether you're hungry. "

" Sometimes I just tell my kids, 'Outside of France, I'm considered completely normal.' This worked until we traveled to London. "

" There's an American idea that you want to look as young as you can for as long as you can. If you can be mistaken for a teenager from behind into your 50s, then you've won; you've succeeded. "

" 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. "

" Like practically everyone who grew up in Miami, I knew little about its history. We were more worried about mangoes falling on our cars. "

" I always knew the French had a penchant for criticism and abstract thought. Usually, that just meant they complained a lot. "

" Not many foreigners move to Paris for their dream job. Many do it on a romantic whim. "

" I think, in writing a memoir, you kind of give order to your life. "

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

" Certain woman will be jealous of how skinny you are, no matter what's causing it. "