Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
purposely touches you, give a really nasty 'poof' or just
ignore him completely, and get away as soon as you can,
walking with your head held high.
THE FAMILY CYCLE OF LIFE
Compared to Anglo-Saxons, the French put family i rst.
Family is the social cement and a specii c, personal duty of
each individual member. Outside are public life, philosophy,
politics, art and cuisine. Inside is family.
Although French people can be very romantic about
'love', they take marriage and children in a very practical
way. The extended family supplies emotional and economic
support. Marriage is one building block of that extended
family. It is not just something to fuli l one's personal needs.
(Lovers are for that.)
However, as Raymonde
Carroll notes, marriage is not the
threshold into adulthood. Having
children is. Children constitute
the parents' obligation and link
to the family and to the society
at large.
Children are a joy to their
parents, as they are in all
cultures, but they also involve a
serious burden of obligation to
the respective families of those
parents. (Asian readers will have
an easier time understanding
this than Americans.)
You Are Also a 'Child'
Being an adult is being a parent in
France. The adult French person
feels free to give instruction to
anyone he considers in need of
it, including a foreigner. You may
fi nd yourself being corrected
quite directly for some error on
your part, by a French person you
never saw before in your life.
Don't feel insulted! Thank
them for the compliment!
This French person is actually
extending himself to you with
a generous spirit. He is paying
you the compliment of giving
his real 'parental' concern.
Remember that duck's back!
Say “Merci, Madame!” and make
the correction.
Children
Children, in France, are seen as a rel ection of their parents'
duty to the family. Therefore, their proper behaviour,
especially in public, is very important. Those old-fashioned
ideas that children should be well-dressed and well-behaved,
even notions that they should be 'seen and not heard' are
still upheld in modern-day France, though it is getting harder
to keep that standard up everywhere in the world.
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