Pamela Druckerman Quotes
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I've gotten used to being a foreigner.
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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.
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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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Parisians won't admit that they go to the gym, let alone that they're scared of terrorists.
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I don't like rules, because rules, you have to follow.
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I guess we're all supposed to get used to living in a more dangerous world.
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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.
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Podcasts immersed me in colloquial English and put me back in the American zeitgeist.
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Soccer may not explain the world or even contain the world. But it makes the world a slightly happier place.
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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.
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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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A lot of French comedy is satire.
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Remember that the problem with hyper-parenting isn't that it's bad for children; it's that it's bad for parents.
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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.
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One of the many problems with parenting is that kids keep changing. Just when you're used to one stage, they zoom into another.
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Eating among the French certainly affected me. After a few years here, I gave up most of my selective food habits.
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Earnestness makes British people gag.
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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.
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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.
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Around my neighborhood, I'm known as the American who talks to her computer while she types.
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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.
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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.
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Parisiennes rarely walk around wearing the giant diamonds that are de rigueur in certain New York neighborhoods.
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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.