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" If you had asked me what I wanted when I was 12 years old, I probably would have said, 'To marry a plastic surgeon.' You can hardly blame me: I was growing up in Miami. "

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" When we're in the U.S., my kids instantly start snacking all the time. I don't know how it happens. There is just more food available all the time. There aren't all these little different varieties of snack foods in France. "

Pamela Druckerman

Start

Time

" When I moved to Europe 12 years ago, my biggest concern was whether I'd ever speak decent French. Practically every American I knew came to visit, many saying they dreamed of living here, too. "

" A large part of the creative process is tolerating the gap between the glorious image you had in your mind and the sad thing you've just made. "

" We're understandably worried that staring at screens all day, and blogging about our breakfasts, is turning America into a nation of narcissists. But the opposite might be true. "

" 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!' "

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

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

" The main thing my bookcase says about me is that I'm not French. "

Pamela Druckerman

Main

Says

" Get rid of the idea of kids' food. Kids can eat whatever adults can eat. You know, there is one dinner, and everyone has the same thing. "

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

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

" I was scared to say I was in my 40s because at that point, it sounded really old, and to out myself as a middle-aged human - I felt very awkward about it. "

" Although I wrote a book about infidelity around the world, I ended up concluding that fidelity is quite a good idea. "

" Where Americans might coo over a child's most inane remark to boost his confidence, middle-class French parents teach their kids to be concise and amusing, to keep everyone listening. "

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

" 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. "

" Around my neighborhood, I'm known as the American who talks to her computer while she types. "

" 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. "

" When my mother in Florida mentions that she's off to play golf, I think: Golf? In the age of Trump? "

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

" I guess we're all supposed to get used to living in a more dangerous world. "

Pamela Druckerman

Dangerous

Used

" When I tell French parents that I know lots of American kids who will eat only pasta or only white rice, they can't believe it. I mean, they can understand how the kid left to his own devices might do that, but they can't imagine that parents would allow that to happen. "

" The French talk about education, the education of their children. They don't talk about raising kids. They talk about education. And that has nothing to do with school. It's this kind of broad description of how you raise children and what you teach them. "

" While I love walking past those beautifully lit bookstores in my neighborhood, what I mostly buy there are blank notebooks and last-minute presents for children's birthdays. "

" 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 gotten used to being a foreigner. "

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

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

" 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. "

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