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" 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. "

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" 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

France

You

" 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. "

" Parisians won't admit that they go to the gym, let alone that they're scared of terrorists. "

Pamela Druckerman

Admit

Alone

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

" Before Donald Trump took office, optimism about his presidency was the lowest of any president-elect since at least the 1970s. "

" 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. "

" When you're further along in your career, you probably have more money and more means; you have to stop yourself from giving your child too much. Whereas, if you're in twenties, you might just get by. "

" 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!' "

" I'm always hoping no one is following me around with a camera. "

Pamela Druckerman

Always

Around

" It's fine to discuss money in France, as long as you're complaining that you don't have enough, or boasting about getting a bargain. "

" In the Nineties, there was all this new research into brain development, with evidence saying poor kids fall behind in school because no one is talking to them at home, no one is reading to them. And middle-class parents seized on this research. "

" 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

Two

Time

" 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. "

" Your child probably won't get into the Ivy League or win a sports scholarship. At age 24, he might be back in his childhood bedroom, in debt, after a mediocre college career. Raise him so that, if that happens, it will still have been worth it. "

" Earnestness makes British people gag. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

" 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.' "

" 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. "

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

" 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

Job

Life

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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

" 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. "

" I've been vacationing in western North Carolina and northern Georgia since I was a kid. I arrive, marvel at the mountains, and put on an unconvincing Southern drawl. "

" 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. "

" I think kids in France, and certainly in my household, don't necessarily stop interrupting when you tell them, but they gradually become more aware of other people, and that means that you can have the expectation of finishing a conversation. "