Marriage Penalties for Bi-National Couples

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

What would Shakespeare make of the growing number of impediments placed before two people from different countries who fall in love and wish to marry and settle in a country?  Bi-national couples are very common in our era of globalization and mass migration.  French students in Canada, German businessmen and women in the US, British expatriates in Thailand or Australian English teachers in Japan are very likely, during their sojourn abroad, to do something very human - to meet the man or woman of their dreams and to build a life together in one or the other country of citizenship.

Those of us who practice this rather extreme form of exogamy take our right to choose the person we wish to marry, and to live together in either country, for granted.  We shouldn't because it is not as easy as it was. More and more governments are placing conditions on or barriers to the right of bi-national spouses to be together and start families.

Family reunification immigration policies and laws exist because not only is the right to family life guaranteed by international human rights law, but because most of us have a moral compass that says that husbands and wives should be together (if they wish) and that keeping children separated from their parents is deeply deeply wrong.  If there is any commitment to families in a country than family reunification would seem to be so obviously consistent with those "family values" that politicians everywhere claim they support.

Why has family reunification has become much more controversial in recent years?  One answer is that states are responding to native citizens' demands to reduce immigration.  Since family reunification represents one of the largest flows of new immigrants in so many countries (2/3 of all legal immigration in the US)  it would be very hard, if not impossible, for governments to reduce the overall number of immigrants without looking at family reunification migrants and trying to keep them out.

That is one motivation but there are others.  To be very frank,  not all spouses are "quality foreigners" in the eyes of a state and its citizens.  Depending on the country of origin there are accusations of fraud and claims that some spouses are unlikely to assimilate or that they will become dependent on the social welfare systems of their husband's or wife's country.

For example, both the UK and Thailand have minimum income requirements that UK and Thai citizens must meet before they can apply for visas for their spouses.  In the UK the citizen-spouse must earn at least £18,600 a year and in Thailand the entire family must show an income of at least 40,000 baht per month from all sources.

Supporters of such measures point to the need to protect local social welfare programs and reading some of the headlines from Thailand, you can certainly understand the problem.  The Bangkok Post reported in 2011 that public hospitals  regularly admit foreigners (mostly Europeans) who are destitute. One hospital alone "spent 1.3 million baht treating 17 penniless foreigners. It was the third consecutive year that the hospital had logged unpaid bills." 

With that in mind income requirements may sound reasonable but is there not another way to look at the matter?  To be very blunt, are bi-national marriages only for the solidly middle and upper-middle classes?    The poor, the young just starting their careers, or the old on fixed incomes must be deprived of the human right to marry and live with the person of their choice for the greater good of society just because the bride or groom is a foreigner .  That does not seem at all reasonable to me.

But income requirements are only one strategy designed to better control or reduce marriage migration.  There are others.   France requires a language test and adherence to the "values of the Republic" before the spouse of a French man or woman can move to France. And, as I write this, the EU is contemplating a most interesting directive designed to strike fear in the hearts of all marriage migrants and their EU spouses living in Europe or abroad.

The forthcoming directive concerns spouses of EU citizens who are third-country nationals (citizens of USA, Canada, Japan, China and many other countries).  The EU wishes:

"to exclude, from the scope of free movement rights, third country nationals who had no prior lawful residence in a Member State before marrying a Union citizen or who marry a Union citizen only after the Union citizen has established residence in the host Member State. Accordingly, in such cases, the host Member State's immigration law will apply to the third country national."

What does this mean exactly?   Well, one interpretation of this would directly and adversely impact a Frenchman who marries a Canadian in Canada.  He can apply to bring his wife to France but because she was not a resident of France before they married, she would have no right to free movement with him within the European Union.  So, the couple could not move to Germany or Belgium - or, to be more precise, he could but she would have to stay in France.

It could also apply to a case where the groom or bride arrived in Germany on a tourist visa, got married to a German citizen and then applied for residency.  No prior residency means no right ever to free movement within the EU unless, of course, the foreign spouse becomes an EU citizen.

All measures to  reduce migration have unintended consequences and marriage migration is no exception. Did the nice young Frenchman I met in Japan who married his anglophone Vietnamese wife in the Kansai region check beforehand the requirements to bring her over to France once his expatriation contract expires?  I doubt it.  When you are young and in love, checking your country's immigration laws is the last thing on your mind.

Would this brilliant beautiful multi-lingual Vietnamese woman have accepted his proposal knowing that she would have to take a language test and subscribe to the values of the French Republic before she would be allowed entry into France?  Who knows?

What would both of them make of the restrictions on their freedom of movement as a couple if they return together to Europe?  I imagine they would be just as shocked as I was.

The end result of all this may very well be a refusal to return.  The Frenchman who marries a Canadian may stay in Canada, the German who marries an American may stay in the US, the British married to a Thai may stay in Thailand. Or any one of those couples could look for a third country that would be happy to receive both of them.

Countries and regions should be very careful before taking such couples to the "edge of doom". The result of these impediments may be a permanent loss of their own citizens who have very strong "family values" and place being together with their spouses and children above all other considerations.

Love, like life, will find a way.  

The Frenchlings and the Fruits of Multilingualism

This week the younger Frenchling and I took the shinkansen to Tokyo.  The train system here in Japan is a marvel - clean, fast and comfortable,  Lovely ladies in cute caps glide through the aisle with drinks and snacks.  Conductors walk through the car making sure everything is as it should be, and when they reach the end, they turn and bow to the passengers.  From Osaka, Kyoto is a mere 30 minutes away;  Tokyo about two and a half hours.  A superior form of travel.

When the Flophouse relocated to Tokyo years ago, the Frenchlings studied at the Lycée Franco-Japonais (now known as the Lycée Français International de Tokyo).  They liked the school; I loved it.  It was this school that finally flipped on the English switch in my little darlings' psyches.

Prior to our moving to Japan the first time the Frenchlings attended French public school and their French was solid.  English, my first language, was used at home (One Parent, One Language) but it was the inferior language - the one their Red, White and Blue mother imposed on them for their own good.   That was my justification at the time  - that I was going to all this trouble to make English a living language in our house for them.  In retrospect, I see that it was a much for my benefit as theirs.  Bilingualism was a standard I set for our family that would prove that I was a good mother and a good American.  Oh, the tyranny of parental expectations!

Under my tutelage, and with the help of family in the US, they made progress and could understand spoken English and answer in the same when it was required of them.  But for all my efforts I could not make them love the language, or even force them to place English at the same level as French.  And once they left the house to go to school in Suresnes or Versailles, English was demoted to a household language spoken by an immigrant mother which had no utility - none of their friends spoke it and authority figures like teachers didn't value it.  Worse, it made them different, and what child wants to be different from her peers?

All that changed when we moved to Tokyo.  The Lycée Franco-Japonais was an international school that served the children of French expatriates and other nationalities who aspired to send their children to France for university.  This well-educated, well-heeled population had very high standards for the education of their offspring.  The parents also had a very different worldview - for many of these French families Japan was their second, third or fourth country. For all that the school followed the French national curriculum and taught for the French bac, multiculturalism  and multilinguism were the norm;  knowing only one language or culture was the exception.   (When the elder Frenchling moved to the US after university she was rather taken aback to be told by some of her American friends that her experiences in France and Japan were not what they meant by "multiculturalism".  Why, I'm not sure, but perhaps some of my readers in the US can clarify.)

This meant that there were many language options on the menu.  English was offered and for the first time in their lives the Frenchlings had grammar, literature and creative writing classes in the language of Shakespeare taught by native English speakers:  Canadians, British and Americans.  Their progress was phenomenal and was due as much to the environment and the values of their peers, as it was to the curriculum and the pedagogy.  English suddenly became not only useful, but essential.  As the Frenchlings went out and about in Tokyo with their friends, it was rare to find fellow Francophones but English-speakers were, if not common, certainly more prevalent.

The French school also had required Japanese classes.  It was here that the Frenchlings had their first initiation into that language and from the very start the younger Frenchling was captivated.  As for me, the parent who struggled for bilingualism, the idea that my children might be inspired to learn a third language was simply beyond me.  I was so invested in the language wars in our home that my linguistic world was strictly limited to the two European languages I knew;  I was simply not capable of encouraging a third language, an interloper in my grand, but strictly bi-lingual, plan.

We returned to France and the elder Frenchling went to an English-speaking university in Quebec (McGill) where she refined her English even more.  She graduated with honors and I was so proud to read her thesis  written in flawless English. The younger Frenchling on her own initiative found a French-English international program offered at a public French high school near Versailles. Delighted that she could continue her English studies, I barely noticed that Japanese was also offered and was only mildly encouraging when the younger Frenchling included that language in her program. (And I note here that the Frenchling's French grandmother was very disappointed that they never studied German - a language that she considers far superior to all others.)

In due time the younger Frenchling followed her sister to Canada.  At first it was physics, but after taking her first university-level Japanese class, she changed her major  and is now working on a degree in Asian Studies.  I find it rather amusing that she is living in Canada, attending a French-speaking university and studying Japanese.  How could I not have noticed all those years her efforts and persistence in finding ways to learn more and more Japanese?  The optional Japanese language classes in high school;  the request for a Japanese tutor in Versailles;  the hours spent watching Japanese anime on her computer.   What I dismissed as something peripheral to her main course of study is now the center of it.

When I was dreaming bi-lingual dreams for my children, I thought the sun rose and set with French and English,  My worth as a mother was to an appalling extent contingent on their language skills and I never questioned the tyranny of those expectations.  I could offer English up with every menu, but I could not make them chew on it with pleasure and swallow.  Such are the limitations of parental power.  I do not regret that they know these languages today, but I recognize that their bi-lingualism was only partly due to my efforts, and that school and peers played a much larger part.

Today what I face as a parent goes beyond accepting past truths:  in a role reversal that I was hesitant to accept, my Frenchlings have become my teachers.  From my talks with the elder Frenchling I am re-learning American culture.  It and the American language have changed in ways that sometimes irritate me, especially when I hear a word, phrase or cultural reference I don't understand  As for the younger Frenchling, she has been our guide and translator as we explored the Kansai region.  For, to my surprise, my Japanese instructor who is now tutoring my daughter during her stay, has pronounced my daughter proficient in Japanese.  She has a good accent, she said, and can hold her own in a conversation.  A conversation?

How astonishing, was my first thought, followed by harsh judgement of my own feeble efforts to learn the language.  For all that I raged all through the Frenchlings' childhood that English was not valued enough in our home, here I was making a similar judgement about Japanese.  I simply did not value the language as highly as French or English and I certainly did not see it as a language to love learning for its own sake as my daughter does.

So, when I agreed to go off to Tokyo with my daughter this week, I put myself in her hands.  I listened really listened to her speaking Japanese.  When I didn't understand or needed a word, I asked her.  And as we strolled through the Naruto exhibition at the Mori Arts Gallery and I looked up and saw a kanji that intrigued me, I turned to the younger Frenchling and asked, "What is that beautiful but terribly complicated character up there? "

And she smiled at her mother and replied, "Love, Mom.  It means Love."

The Battle for Bi-lingualism

"Making sure my children are at least proficient in conversational French is a goal I have set myself despite the setbacks. A recent event has given me reason for hope. At a market in London's east end, overhearing excited shouts in French, we stopped to watch some boys playing football in a yard. They were being overseen by a group of besuited men on the steps of a nearby community centre. The boys and their fathers were from several Francophone African countries, the Ivory Coast, Congo, Guinea. Noticing my son’s interest, they asked if he wanted to join the game. As the football was kicked back and forth, I heard my son speak French, not just once, but several times over."

Ben Faccini
In a world that converses only in English, we’ll talk only of banal things: that’s why I want my children to be bilingual

This is a moment that a frustrated minority language parent will treasure forever - hearing the children use the other family language in public.  

When I listen to people in France or the United States who are shocked that there are innocent children out there whose parents are foisting another language on them at home, thus destroying any chance that they will learn the official language of the country, I literally erupt in laughter.

Their concern is misplaced.  The problem is not learning the official language which they will do because children are social creatures with intelligence and a desire to communicate with their peers, but that the minority language of one or more of the parents will be completely lost in a sea of English, French or whatever majority language the children are being exposed to.

This is the battle that many migrants and partners in a bi-national couple fight every day.   Not to make their homes a bastion of the minority language against the country and culture they live in, but to impart, however imperfectly, some of the mother tongue of a distant land that the parent or parents once called "home".

It's hard to raise children to be bi-lingual and the results of the efforts are uncertain.  Maybe the children will grow to be bi-lingual adults or maybe not. What I've seen is a continuum of children raised in bi-lingual households ranging from the ability to understand a little and say a few words in the other language to full fluency (accent, understanding, reading, writing, speaking). 

And that is just as true of children whose parents are trying to teach them a "useful" or "important" language like English or French, as it is in the transmission of other languages with less prominence and perceived utility.  A child doesn't necessarily understand those adult prejudices - all he or she knows is that mom (or dad) talks "funny". 

Faccini, a bilingual French/English speaker who lives in London and whose dreams of raising French speakers was crashing on the shoals of reality, describes beautifully the forces against the minority language parent:

"Introducing French into the family equation has undoubtedly been an additional complication. It skews mealtimes, often setting off lopsided conversations, pitting my French against everyone else’s English. It makes the children feel they are being judged and tested. And, despite their growing comprehension of French, they’ll find any excuse to walk a few steps behind me on the way to school in case I’m overheard. They stick their fingers in their ears when the Petit Nicolas CD is played in the car. They wriggle their way out of talking to French-speaking friends and family members by perfectly mimicking Gallic shrugs, sometimes accompanied by Parisian-sounding ‘errrrs’, or else they clam up completely. Most of their conversations end up wordless. A thumbs-up or a thumbs-down, offered with a cherubic smile, usually settles a wide range of issues."

One important omission in Faccini's post is the role played by the other parent which in this case is his wife.  From the article it appears she is a native English speaker and he neglects to mention how she feels about his effort to promote French in their UK household.  One thing I have learned from the readers of this blog and from Gabrielle Varro's work is that the attitude of the other parent is crucial.  

Where the native speaker parent doesn't value the other language, doesn't show any interest in learning it, and demonstrates by word, deed and attitude that this is not a common project, he/she subtly undermines the parent with the minority language.  In a bi-national couple this can become the source of much anger and frustration which may never be openly expressed, but festers at the heart of the marriage. 

Is the effort to transmit the minority language worth the trip?  Faccini thinks so and so do I.  He has his reasons and I have mine -  some of which I admit have a lot to do with my struggles as a woman migrant (guilt, pressure from the homeland, and identity crisis).

What we share, I think, is the utter delight we felt when all those efforts  paid off and we heard our mother tongue spontaneously coming from the mouths of our progeny.  Like Faccini  I had to wait many years for those moments and allow me to share with you one of the very best ones.

At the age of 14 the younger Frenchling decided to write a novel in English.  Took her two years of struggle but she finally finished it at the age of 16.  It's a fabulous first effort.

And when I read it, I cried.

The First Week of Advent

"Voici que nous entrons dans le temps de l'Avent.  Le mot "Avent" vient due latin "adventus" qui veut dire Venue,  Avènement.  Ce temps liturgique n'existe pas dans l'Eglise orientale."

(Now we enter into the time of Advent.  The word "Advent" come from the Latin "adventus" which means the coming or the arrival of something significant.  This liturgical event does not exist in the Eastern Church.)

Parish Newsletter
Ste. Elisabeth de Hongrie, Versailles

Temperatures are dropping fast here in Versailles.  This weekend was bitter cold at night and not much warmer during the day.  This city was built on swampland so we can add high humidity to its winter charm.

But we are learning about how to make our woodstove work for us.  Saturday I managed to stoke it properly for the first time before I went to bed and it was still going when I got up on Sunday morning.  There were even coals remaining when I got back from church early in the afternoon and I was able to start a new fire from the ashes of the old one.

Two weeks ago we went to the wood lot in Viroflay and bought 3/4 of a stère.  A stère is an old unit of measurement that roughly corresponds today to 1 meter cubed.  I'm not sure how much that would be in cords, the unit of measurement still used in North America for wood.  One upon a time the French used cordes as well:  "Corde (pour le bois) = 2 voies soit 3.84 ou 2.74 stères (selon la longueur du bois qui pouvait être de 2.5 ou 3.5 pieds)."

The logs come in several standard sizes:  1 meter, 50 cm, 33 cm, and 25 cm.  Our wood guy only sells 50 and 33.  Since we were still learning about our stove we were conservative and took half a stère of the 33 cm logs and a quarter stère in 50 cm.  After two weeks of daily fires we have about 1/4 stère left so we will have to get wood again next weekend.

I love the Christmas season.  The city has put up lights - the octrois (old tax houses) are particularly nice.  This inspired us to go down into the basement and take out our box of goodies:  the old Angel Chimes from my grandmother and various lights and ornaments from the U.S., Japan and France. This is our first Christmas in our house here in Porchefontaine and so we must arrange old things in a new setting.   The chimes found a home in the living room.  The crèche (nativity scene) will have to go on the chest of drawers in the dining room (the only surface with enough space for all those santons).

We'll get our usual tree next week but I think this year we will also put up outside lights along the top of the porch.  White, I think, to match the ones the city put up along the street.  I kept one bag of branches from the juniper (tuya) hedge my parents helped take out last fall and I made a wreath for the door.  It's not perfect but not too bad for a first effort.  I'm thinking I will decorate the front porch with the rest - a good use for the remaining branches and all those silver and red ribbons I've carried for years from one country to another.

Another area where we mix and match French traditions with American ones is food.  From the French side it's chocolate and foie gras and other delicacies.  From the American side it's pies, cookies, cakes, and other pastries.  I still haven't got the knack of baking for two adults but not a problem - the extra goes to my neighbors and friends.  Since our neighbors were kind enough to share their fresh figs from their glorious fig tree (brought to France in a car from Italy a few decades ago), they got a Swedish tea ring with fig filling.

One food tradition from the family in Seattle that I would very much like to revive is making Krumkake, a Norwegian crêpe baked in a mold like a waffle.  I have an iron, an old cast iron one with a wood handle that I bought over 25 years ago at a garage sale for a couple dollars.  It's stamped "Alfred Andersen & Co. 2424, Minneapolis" and a quick websearch shows that they are still on the market and sold as "vintage" or "antique" Norwegian waffle irons.  Amazing.  Since I have zero knowledge of Norwegian culture, I can't tell you much more or vouch for the authenticity of any of this but the iron is beautiful and, as of 2013,  is 99 years old.  Still works and will probably work for another 99 years if the Frenchlings take care of it (a little like the Godin now that I think about it).

 My problem is that I have an induction stovetop and there's no way I can see to use the iron on it.  Perhaps the woodstove would be of service here.  If I can make boeuf bourguignon on it, surely I could whip up a few crumb cakes.  Ah, you might be thinking, "This is a woman with too much time on her hands."  Perhaps, but they are awfully good and it's food which (happily) is something that people in the Hexagon take seriously.

Sunday Mass was lovely.  I can now get through an entire Mass in French and not miss a word (or a response).  I can even sing most of the hymns without too much trouble, though I still miss many of the liaisons where the last consonant is dragged over to the first vowel of the next word.  Also when we sing the last consonant of words ending in  "e", it's drawn out and becomes a separate syllable (something that doesn't happen in regular speech). So prière becomes pri-è-re.  If anyone knows why this is, I'd love to have an explanation.

I know when to sit and when to stand (not too different from the Anglophone church I used to go to in Paris).  Kneeling is optional and most don't.  I do because, well, it's what I was taught and because there is a moment in the ritual where it just feels right. Unlike the American churches I knew, there are no kneelers - padded boards for you to rest your knees.  So it's the floor and I'm not so old that I can't handle that for five or ten minutes.   I know that this may strike some of you as weird but I've spent a fair amount of my life confusing myself with the Deity which was a recipe for disaster and despair.  Kneeling is one way, among many, of acknowledging that God is present, His name is not Victoria (can't kneel before or bow to yourself, right?), and that I will be more (not less) for having done it. It is a graceful act of trustful surrender. As John Waters put it:

"And so it is with belief in God.  Previously I was terrified of a world I didn't trust to support me.  I feared everything, mistrusted everything.  Now I accept, as a matter of fact, that I am part of reality, that I can throw myself into the stuff of everyday and be sure it will embrace my surrender.  I cannot think this process into being.  I can only do it.  It depends on action based on trust, and feeling based on a state of harmony with the world, which can be also called grace." 

Tales from the Homeland: Mt. Angel

“On July 16, 1882, His Holiness Pope Leo XII had granted permission to ‘found a house of the regulars of the Order of St. Benedict of the Monastery of Engelberg in Switzerland, at the mission named Sts. Gervase and Protase, as well as permission to found in the same place a house of nuns of the same Order, who are free for the education of girls.’”

Alberta Dieker, OSB

A Tree Rooted in Faith

Just a few miles down the road from the family farm here in Oregon’s Willamette Valley is a small Swiss-American community of around 3,000 souls called Mt. Angel.

Founded in the 19th century by Swiss-Germans, Mt. Angel in 2013 is a small but healthy community.  A quick walk around the town reveals that it has retained much of the national characteristics of the original settlers, not the least of which is the German language.  Many shop signs, for example, are still in English and German.

We’ve visited Mt. Angel three times since our arrival.  The first visit was a family tradition - dinner at a local restaurant called the Glockenspiel;  an eatery with great food, a casual dress code and a family-friendly atmosphere (never a problem seating 10 people for dinner).   Until I ate there for the first time many years ago I had never realized how good German food was;  it was here I learned to love spätzle.

Our second trip into town was to visit the Queen of Angels Monastery.  This Benedictine community was founded in the late 19th century by sisters from the Maria-Rickenbach Benedictine convent in Switzerland.  The story of how these European sisters came to the United States (the far far West) and built convents, schools and churches is brilliantly told in the book A Tree Rooted in Faith written by Alberta Dieker.  More than just a dry recital of the facts, Dieker explores the historical context and the motivations of these unlikely pioneers.

“The sisters who came from Switzerland to Oregon by way of Missouri were part of what historians today consider a mass migration of peoples from Europe to the Americas.  The Land of Opportunity beckoned all kinds of Europeans for many reasons.  The reasons that inspired a particular group of sisters to emigrate to the United States and to make a permanent settlement in Oregon are important to our story.”

It was certainly not about “making it rich.”  The first years of settlement were hard - some sisters even died of disease caused by overwork and exhaustion.  The convent was often in debt and had to ask for funds and personnel from the mother house.  During World War I, the German sisters who were not U.S. citizens were required to register and many worried about anti-German sentiment (and a fair amount of anti-Catholicism as well). 

For those of us who are following the culture wars over the veil in France, it is interesting to note that the state of Oregon had similar ideas 90 years ago but directed primarily against Catholics, not Muslims.  

In 1923 the state legislature (regional parliament) passed The Garb Bill which forbid public school teachers from wearing any clothing thought to be religious. "This bill was aimed squarely at five or six small local school districts in communities with a predominantly Catholic population."

Since many nuns taught in the Oregon public schools as salaried employees, they had a choice to make:  cast off their habits or leave the public school system.  Since the communities they taught in were Catholic, the locals urged the nuns to comply; but they refused and instead chose to focus their efforts and use their teaching skills in private Catholic institutions.  Another law passed in the 1920’s would have made it a requirement that all children in Oregon attend public schools.  This, of course, would have shut down all the Catholic and other private schools in that state.  However, the law was fiercely contested and declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme court in 1922.

A modest suggestion for those who support restrictions on religious apparel in public spaces (which for some reason seems to be mostly about what women are wearing - are we not old enough to dress ourselves?) or the rabid insistence on the exclusive use of the national language.  Things look very different when it is your culture or religion that is considered "foreign" and when your migrants and their descendants are being accused of a "refusal to assimilate."  I personally am delighted to see that German survives here and that the nuns can continue to wear their habits in public and that the Mennonites can wear their long skirts and cover their hair.  It makes for an interesting community.  And, believe me, it is no less a community as a result of these things.

Habit by Dior
http://monkallover.blogspot.com/2006_05_21_archive.html

For our third trip and last trip into town my mother and I got up at the crack of dawn this morning to go to Mass at the Mt. Angel parish church, St. Mary’s.  From the outside it is a rather sober structure made of brick.  The inside is another story.  The nave is airy and light and there are many statues - some to Mary and others of Benedictine nuns and monks.  As we reached the high point of the Mass (liturgy of the Eucharist) the sun began to shine through the stained glass windows on both sides of the altar.  Magnificent.

For an early early Sunday morning Mass the church was surprisingly full.  Many farm families with well-behaved children. The church parking lot was filled with huge trucks and many wore jeans and looked ready to get right back to work once services were over.  Perhaps it is my imagination but I had the thought that these parishioners would not have looked a bit out of place in a parish in Germany or Switzerland.  

As for us we came back to the farm and no sooner had we made coffee then it began to rain which put a halt to our various projects.  A good day to stay inside, make pies, read books and just be with family.

Bon dimanche, everyone.

How to Raise Frenchlings

I'm packing my suitcase right now for a three day trip up to Vancouver, British Columbia.  We're leaving around noon and should cross the border late afternoon.  So far the plan is very simple:  Go to Mass, Find an AA meeting, and meet up with people I've met on-line in these past few years.  I haven't been on a road trip since I got sick and I am so looking forward to this one.

The other day the younger Frenchling turned 18 and that meant that I no longer have children at home.  My two daughters are a source of delight and wonder for me.  They are so much smarter than I am and much funnier, too.  The elder Frenchling is working at a restaurant here in Seattle this summer - an introduction to the working world.  Tips are generally good and so are most of the customers.  But every once in awhile there's a bad apple.  The other day one such person came in and said:  "Yeah you guys aren't really doing anything, but the tip jar is right there so I'd feel bad not leaving a few dollars."

To which my daughter replied (in her head and on FB later, but not to the customer since she is no fool):

"Yes honey. The food runs itself, the shakes make themselves, the dishes carry themselves to the kitchen. In fact, the money makes itself. I don't know why we even show up for work."

Yes, my sweet child, "Il y a des cons partout."  Now, if she were in France she could have said it directly to the customer but this is the U.S. where it is apparently acceptable to 1.  denigrate working people and 2. be rude and unpleasant to the staff.  Whoever came up with "The Customer is King" was an ass.

In honor of my two adult children, here is a post I wrote back in 2008 about some general principles we followed for raising bi-lingual, bi-cultural, bi-national kids.  Your mileage may vary but it seems to have worked out pretty well for us.

How to Raise Frenchlings

The Franco-American Flophouse is a bi-lingual, bi-cultural family (even the cats understand English, French and Frenglish.) Contrary to what some people think it was not obvious when we had children that we would succeed in making it so. It takes more than one foreign parent to create a truly bi-cultural family in which everyone is “at home” wherever you decide to live. Success depends on your persistence and on your awareness of the forces that are aligned against you (schools, family members, the dominant culture). Here are four strategies that we have used that we think were particularly effective:

Language Equality - my husband and I use the One Parent, One Language method (OPOL). He speaks French to the Frenchlings and I speak English. This is the foundation but it is far from sufficient. Over the years we have come up with other strategies that we have added to OPOL:

- My husband and I are bi-lingual and we demonstrate daily to the children that we are competent in both languages. Since we live in France where the dominant language is French my husband and I reinforce English by speaking it to each other at home.

- French and English books and movies are always read/shown in the original language (no cheating and turning on the French soundtrack to Harry Potter). 

- Recognize that language is a very emotional topic in many countries and that the larger society (in particular the public schools) has interests that are not necessarily compatible with your multi-lingual, multi-cultural goals. This has been my experience in both the US and France (in the latter I was scolded by the teachers when my children were young for speaking English at home). My advice is to not get into it with the schools or argue about it with family or friends. Just smile, thank them for their advice, and then go home and do what you think is right.

Staying Connected
Language is only half the battle, culture is just as important. Frequent visits to the Other Country are indispensable. Our Frenchlings spend part of their vacation in France (Brittany) and part in North America (Canada and the U.S.) where they stay with grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends. This not only enriching from a cultural standpoint but it keeps the extended family firmly in the present.

Choosing a Third Place
Three years ago we packed up and moved to Tokyo, Japan for two years. It was the first time we lived as a family in a place where none of us were citizens and none of us spoke or read the language. The home court advantage was completely erased. For the first time we could see the subtle advantages that my French husband has when we live in France or I had when we lived in the U.S. It also gave us a completely different perspective on European/North American cultures which, seen through the eyes of our Asian friends and co-workers, are not so different...

The Grass is NOT Greener
The grass is not greener on the other side of the Atlantic. We do not live in France because it is a nicer place than North America and we do not spend our days filled with regret that we are not living in the U.S. This is what we believe and what we teach our children: there is no “better” place, there are only different places with different charms and challenges.

Bi-cultural Families: The Culture Wars

A Flophouse reader left an interesting comment the other day.  He is a Frenchman with a family living in the U.S. and what he said touched a very deep chord within me.  His children, he said jokingly, are more American than French.

Yes, that happens when you are the "foreign" half of a couple and the children are being brought up in a country other than your own.  You are outclassed and outnumbered because culture is to man what the sea is to a fish.  Between the native spouse, the in-laws, the childcare workers, your children's friends and the public schools, it's a battle to pass on even a small sliver of your home culture and language.  (Oh, if the English (or French) Only crowd had any idea how hard it is to transmit a language and a culture in these situations, they might relax a bit.)  Those little dual national minnows are often not terribly receptive or interested in the other country.  What child wants to be different in elementary or middle school?  This is their world and when they are young, it's the whole world.  They are smart enough to figure out what their friends, family and teachers think is important and to act accordingly.

Some are even embarrassed by their immigrant parent.  When Mom (or Dad) speaks with an accent or makes the occasional grammatical error in the local language, they wince.  They don't fail to notice that the society around them has negative attitudes toward "foreigners" or dislikes hearing other language spoken in public spaces.  I once sat through a meeting at school next to a woman from Brazil who had to listen (with her daughter right there)  to other parents talking about how "useless" it was for anyone to learn Portuguese.  My own children came home several times distressed and angry because their teachers decided to talk about "fat Americans"  or the evil nature of the United States and her people.

I've met foreign parents who gave up and went for radical assimilation.  OK, we'll speak French at home from now on - they can learn English (or German or Spanish) later at school.  Plane tickets are expensive and the kids would much rather go to grand-mère's house in the country, so we'll stay here this year.  Maybe we'll plan a trip next year....

I respect that decision.  It takes a lot of time and energy to bring children up more or less bi-cultural.  Money is also a problem for some.  Long ago I knew an American woman here in France who was a secretary married to a housepainter.  With three kids, plane tickets to the U.S. were a luxury they simply couldn't afford.  In the end, it's hard enough as it is to be an immigrant, why make things worse by taking on the dominant culture?

Some of us are insane enough to try.  It's not that we don't want our children to be French or American or German - it's that we want to pass on something of where we came from to the next generation.  What is actually transmitted varies - every parent has to take a good hard look at his own culture and determine what he or she thinks is important.  In my case I said "yes" to English and American history and "no" to Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July.  I had a lot of help from the American family in the U.S. who sent books and videos and hosted the Frenchlings when we sent them for a visit.

Whatever the foreign parent decides after negotiation with the native spouse, is really up to him or her.  There is no one right way to do this just as there is no perfect way to be a parent.  And isn't there always someone out there ready to tell us that we're doing a very poor job of it?

I personally think that passing along one's culture is a battle worth fighting.  And if I may offer some solace to those who may still be struggling with this?

Children grow up.  What they care about at five will not be what they care about at fifteen (or fifty). Just because you lose a few battles (and you will) it doesn't mean you've lost the war.   If you can take a stand for those few things that you really care about and are willing to fight for, then you will have planted seeds that will bloom one day into real interest in the other country - its people, culture and language.

New EU Rules on Cross-Border Inheritance

For new laws and regulations governing cross-border issues the European Union is really leading the way.  Here are 27 member states with their own sovereign territories and long long histories trying to build something together that they all can live with to mutual fun and profit.  The process is slow because there are so many actors, so much diversity, and so many interests.  Negotiations over EU proposals can take years before they finally come to fruition.  What they come up with is worth watching because their solutions could be a model for other regions wishing to form more closer unions and could have an impact on international law and even other countries' domestic laws.  No area is untouched:  education, voting rights, immigration, taxation, contracts and even family law.

On July 4th, 2012 after 7 years of negotiations, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union passed a new law to manage cross-border succession (inheritance) in EU countries.  The purpose here is to manage conflicts of law that arise when a deceased person, who may or may not have been living in his country of citizenship, had an estate located in multiple countries.  In those cases, which are becoming more and more common, the outstanding questions were:  Whose law prevails and do individuals have any say in how they wish their cross-border estates to be managed and distributed after death?  It was to answer this that the EU passed what is commonly known as the EU Succession Regulation or Brussels IV.

Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 on "jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement of decisions and acceptance and enforcement of authentic instruments in matters of succession and on the creation of a European Certificate of Succession" is now EU law for 24 of the 27 member states (the UK, Ireland, and Denmark opted out) and member states have three years to bring their domestic legislation into compliance.  What's in it?  What does it mean for individuals whose lives span multiple countries?  And are there any inheritance issues not covered by this regulation?

Let's start with the situation prior to this regulation.  There was much variation in inheritance laws among the 27 member states.  France alone has some very complex and strict rules that many foreigners discover to their horror when they follow in the footsteps of Peter Mayle and retire in the French countryside.     Angelique Devaux, a French attorney who wrote a very good paper about the new EU regulation, describes what this meant in practical terms for a mobile European with one foot in the UK and the other in France when he passed on:

"For instance, a French citizen, married with 3 children, was living in UK where he died. He owned one property in Paris, France and one property in London, UK, one bank account in France and one bank account in UK. Both France and UK currently apply the division system. French law will only be applied on the French property and the British law on the rest of the estates (movable French estates and British movables and immovables). If the deceased had made a will in totally favor of his surviving spouse, his wishes could not be entirely applied on the French property because of the French forced share rule. This typical example creates an imbalance in the succession and it does not respect the last wills of the deceased."

According to EU Justice Commissioner Reding, "There are around 4.5 million successions a year in the EU, of which about 10% have an international dimension. These successions are valued at about €123 billion a year."So when the EU looked at how to better manage that 10% they had three objectives in mind:   Encouraging the free movement of persons within the EU,  harmonization of succession regimes and the avoidance of conflicting inheritance laws, and respect for the wishes of individuals.  

"The proper functioning of the internal market should be facilitated by removing the obstacles to the free movement of persons who currently face difficulties in asserting their rights in the context of a succession having cross-border implications."

So how do the new rules achieve this?

Unity of Succession:  One law/one jurisdiction will be applied to the entire estate regardless of how many EU countries are involved and what kind of assets are involved (movable or immovable).  But how to determine which law to apply?

Habitual Residence:  The EU looked at three possibilities for whose laws would prevail in a cross-border succession where the deceased had not expressed a preference prior to passing on:  citizenship, domicile and residency.  The EU went with residency.

"...this Regulation should provide that the general connecting factor for the purposes of determining both jurisdiction and the applicable law should be the habitual residence of the deceased at the time of death. In order to determine the habitual residence, the authority dealing with the succession should make an overall assessment of the circumstances of the life of the deceased during the years preceding his death and at the time of his death, taking account of all relevant factual elements, in particular the duration and regularity of the deceased’s presence in the State concerned and the conditions and reasons for that presence. The habitual residence thus determined should reveal a close and stable connection with the State concerned taking into account the specific aims of this Regulation."

So I interpret this to mean that if a German citizen who is a long-term resident of Spain with property and bank accounts in that country and in the home country gets hit by a car in Barcelona and dies unexpectedly without expressing his wishes in advance, his entire estate in Germany and Spain would fall under Spanish inheritance law.   It would seem to exclude those who simply have a vacation home in another country and only spend a few months there every year.  Sounds simple enough and yet I think we can all come up with situations where it would not be so clear which means that there will be some sort of arbitration involved to determine the closeness of the connection.  

Angelique Devaux takes exception to this decision to use habitual residence as the default and argues in favor of nationality being the determining factor.  I think she's wrong and greatly underestimates the prevalence of dual citizens in the EU.  It could be just as complicated to decide which nationality is dominant in such cases.  Residency has the advantage of being concrete and provable and it avoids conflicts between states over who has primary sovereignty over the deceased person and, by extension, the estate.  The regulation also allows for nationality to be used as one factor in cases where there is a real doubt about residency.  But she does make a very valid point that the heirs might look at at the two (or more) different regimes under which the estate could fall and, wishing to have the one most favorable to them applied, might provide a distorted view of the "facts" that prove or disprove residency.  

Professio juris (choice of law):  And here is where the new EU law is something of an innovation.  A way to avoid the application of the habitual residence principle is simply to declare in advance what regime one wishes one's estate to fall under.  This means that a person living in the EU can choose to have the estate fall under the inheritance laws of his country of nationality (no, one cannot decide simply to apply willy-nilly just any country's inheritance laws).  

"This Regulation should enable citizens to organise their succession in advance by choosing the law applicable to their succession. That choice should be limited to the law of a State of their nationality in order to ensure a connection between the deceased and the law chosen and to avoid a law being chosen with the intention of frustrating the legitimate expectations of persons entitled to a reserved share...
A choice of law should be made expressly in a declaration in the form of a disposition of property upon death or be demonstrated by the terms of such a disposition. A choice of law could be regarded as demon­strated by a disposition of property upon death where, for instance, the deceased had referred in his disposition to specific provisions of the law of the State of his nationality or where he had otherwise mentioned that law. " 

I'm assuming this means a will or other testament or contract prepared in accordance with the law of the state of nationality.  So a French person living in Italy can have a document drawn up that says that the division of his or her estate is to be done in accordance with French law, not Italian law.  What is very interesting about this choice is that it is not restricted to EU citizens - it also applies to EU residents and foreigners owning property in an EU member state.  So, in theory, I, a U.S. citizen, could have a will drawn up in accordance with the laws of Washington State in the U.S. (which pretty much says I can leave my assets to anyone I wish)  and it would have to be taken into consideration.  However where my wishes might be contrary to the "the legitimate expectations of persons entitled to a reserved share..." (which is the case under French law) this probably wouldn't fly.  Nonetheless this option opens up all kinds of new possibilities for multi-country estate planning and if done properly can greatly simplify cross-border succession.

European Certificate of Succession and Will Database:  To help keep matters simple and efficient, the new regulations provide for a certificate of succession, "a standard form certificate designed to enable heirs, legatees, executors or administrators to prove their legal status and/or rights" that can be written up in one member state and used in another.  There is also a project called IRTE which would connect all the European will registers so one could file a will and testament with one country's authorities and it could be easily located wherever the person happens to be when he or she dies.

That grosso modo is what the new succession law is all about.  What is not covered under this law?  Trusts, matrimonial regimes, gifts, taxation and a few other things.  It also does not completely resolve conflicts when they come up against a non-EU state's laws.  Angelique Devaux gives this example:

"For instance, a Belgian was living in the US, died with immovable assets both in Belgian and USA. American law will govern the succession Law as the habitual residence of the deceased. What does the American conflict of law’s say? American law applies the lex situs rule to immovables. Such consequences are that the American property will be governed by the American law while the Belgian property will be governed by the Belgian law. In that case, there is a revival of the division’s principle."  

So the law isn't perfect but since "le mieux est l'ennemi du bien" (perfect is the enemy of good),  I'd call it a very satisfactory start.  We'll see how it plays out as it is translated into each member state's domestic legislation.

If you are in a situation where you face a cross-border succession either as a person with a multi-country estate or as an heir to one, my best advice is to do some research into this (please do not take my word on all of this as I am not an attorney) and then go talk to a competent professional.  "Easier" does mean "completely straightforward and anyone can DIY (do it yourself)."  A very good place to begin is this website run by the EU called Successions in Europe.  Available in 23 languages, it gives an good overview of the inheritance laws of all 27 member states. 

As usual I have been a bit wordy.  I will end this post with a short video by Commissioner Reding about the new law and the website.  

That American Library in Paris

Earlier this week I marched myself down to 10, rue du Général Camou and purchased an annual membership  in the American Library.

Last time I had a membership we were living just across the river near Trocadero and the Frenchlings were still in elementary school.  We had a family membership and I used to force them to walk over with me to attend English-language story time in the children's section.  (My children who are very happy to be bi-lingual today have amnesia about how much they hated speaking English back then.)

The American Library in Paris was founded in 1920 just after World War I with the books that libraries in the U.S. sent over for the soldiers to read - about 1.5 million of them.

Since then the library has had quite a history. While I was on the premises I picked up an information sheet called "A Short History of the Library. " Here are a few interesting events from the past:

1923 - Library launches a review called Ex Libris. Early contributors were Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein.

1933 - Literary evenings are launched at the library. Guest authors are Colette, Andre Gide and Ford Madox Ford.

1941 - The library director is sent home to the U.S. for her safety but library board member Countess Clara de Chambrun arranges for the library to remain open under the occupation. Library staff operates an underground lending service for Jewish members.

1953 - Two investigators for Senator McCarthy in a mission to root out communist literature are turned away from the library by the Director.

Today the library is located in the 7th district very close to the Eiffel Tower.  It was renovated in 2011 and they did a beautiful job - lots of room to settle in and read.  Their catalog is on-line so you can search from home and then stop by and pick up the books you selected.

Why was I inspired to renew my membership?  It was a combination of the limitations of my Kindle and our upcoming move to Porchefontaine.   I love my Kindle but not all the books I want to read exist in electronic format and perhaps never will.  I still purchase quite a few regular (made out of dead trees) books and that has become a problem now that we are moving.  Our new house is much smaller than our old apartment and I have over 200 books that I must either give away or throw away.   I think it makes a great deal more sense for me to subscribe to the library for the books I want for research instead of purchasing copies that I risk having to throw out later.


I had not planned on using my subscription that day but I unexpectedly had a few minutes to cruise the new book collection and the catalog.  To my delight, they had a copy of a book I've wanted to read for some time:   Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany by Rogers Brubaker. A Kindle edition is now available (it wasn't last time I looked) but for around 20 USD.   I also picked up William Pfaff's The Irony of Manifest Destiny and Peter Sahlin's Unnaturally French.

I had forgotten how lovely it was to be in a library:  the smell of books, the quiet and the bounty spread before in a visual feast that Amazon just can't match.  Feeling a little like drug addict in a crackhouse, I forced myself to stop at 3 books (all I could carry really) and walked out of the library flush and happy.

I will be back.

As I trekked back up the street to the RER station for the ride home I came across this building which I have certainly passed by before but it was only the day I visited the library that I really saw it.  It's one of the most stunning buildings I've seen in Paris. 

Journée défense et citoyenneté

In today's mail we received a note from the Defense Ministry addressed to the elder Frenchling reminding her that, as a French citizen who has reached her majority, she is required to attend a  "Journée défense et citoyenneté" (National Defense and Citizenship Day).

The draft is long gone but that does not mean that military service (defense of the nation) has been disconnected from citizenship.  The JDC is part of an overall effort, a "parcours de citoyenneté," on the part of the state and the military to "informer les jeunes Français sur leurs droits et devoirs en tant que citoyens pour les aider à mieux comprendre le fonctionnement des institutions de leur pays.  (Inform young Frenchmen and women of their rights and duties as citizens to help them better understand how their country's institution function.)

The JDC is actually the last step in this process which starts in high school.  Sometime during the third and first year, the professors are required to include as part of the program of civic, legal and social education, discussions about national defense, state security and what dangers and challenges exist in the world today.  The second step is the census.  At the age of 16 all young Frenchmen and women are required to present themselves and be counted at their local mayor's office.  This is a pre-requisite for being able to pass the national exams (CAP, BAC, driver's license).

The final step is a one day session for all young men and women who have reached their majority (18 years).  The objective of this day is to point out a very important and essential fact:

Les pouvoirs publics et les forces armées agissent chaque jour pour que la liberté puisse exister, sur notre territoire, mais également en Europe et sur d'autres continents.
La JDC est une journée qui permet de rappeler à chacun que cette liberté a un prix. C'est aussi une occasion unique de contact direct avec la communauté militaire, et de découverte des multiples métiers et spécialités, civiles et militaires qu'offre aujourd'hui aux jeunes, la Défense.
The forces of order and the armed forces act every day so that liberty can exist, on our territory, but also in Europe and on other continents.
The JDC is a day to remind everyone that liberty has a price.  It is also a unique occasion for direct contact with the military community and to discover the numerous profession and specialties (civilian and military) available today for young people in the armed forces.

You can read more about the actual program here.  They provide breakfast and lunch, basic first aid training and even a visit to a military installation in addition to talks about the rights and duties of citizenship and national defense matters.  Naturally a bit of recruiting is slipped in there as well.

What do I (US citizen, long-term resident of the French Republic and potential citizen) think of all this? Well, I rather wish that my country had done something similar for me in my formative years.  I do not recall (perhaps this has changed) anything quite so comprehensive and clear concerning citizenship being provided as part of my education.  And though I did come from a part of the U.S. that has quite a few military installations, the first recruiter or veterans I ever encountered, I met in my second or third year of university.  As odd as this may sound the only military personnel I've ever known well have been French:  my father-in law (career French Army officer) and the elder Frenchling's god-father who is an officer in the French Navy (lots of uniforms at my wedding).  Even with that experience, I would not pretend to know or understand very well what they did or do.  

I wish I could participate in one of these National Defense and Citizenship Days.  As an observer certainly, who is genuinely curious and interested in what they have to say, but also as a potential citizen who has read the Charte carefully and the part that says:   "Tout citoyen concourt à la défense et à la cohésion de la nation" (Every citizen contributes to the defense and the cohesion of the nation).

Happy Valentine's Day - Family Reunification in the EU

And a very Happy Valentine's Day to all of you.   It seems appropriate to use this day and this post to talk once again about family reunification policy in the EU.  

Our Franco-American family exists today because of those policies - the right of EU citizens and legal residents to bring those they love to live with them in an EU member state.  Today these rights are being challenged in some countries and have been diminished in others even though the EU Directive 2003/86/EC,  firmly lays down the EU's position: "Family reunification is a necessary way of making family life possible. It helps to create sociocultural stability facilitating the integration of third country nationals in the Member State, which also serves to promote economic and social cohesion, a fundamental Community objective stated in the Treaty."

As I wrote in my original post last December, it used to be true that many EU states went above and beyond the minimum requirements to comply with the EU directive but in recent years a few have passed more onerous entry requirements (Denmark, for example).  Other states are taking note and considering similar actions. It is reported that both the U.K. and the Netherlands are looking closely at Danish policy. What kind of changes are being proposed? Education and income requirements, pre-entry tests (designed to measure the capacity of the person to assimilate), long waits for processing, application fees and "proof of attachment" to the host country are all possibilities.

In response to this flagrant disregard for EU policy the EU is holding a consultation.  They say they want to hear from all the stakeholders in this policy before they take action:  migrants and migrant rights organizations, family-members of EU citizens or legal residents wishing to come to the EU, member-states and even other states outside the EU. Yes, the last have an interest in this too. Countries of origin sometimes see other state's liberal family reunification policies as quite dangerous to their interests - it can diminish remittances, help migrants to integrate in the host country (not necessarily a good thing from their point of view), and reduce the likelihood that their people will one day return to the home country.

To get a good idea for the issues around this topic, have a look at the MIPEX blog and Thomas Huddleston's slides from the webinar they held late last year:

How to Respond to the EU Family Reunion Consultation - Webinar slides of 7 December 2012

View more PowerPoint from Migrant Integration Policy Index

I've heard many complaints about the EU being too bureaucratic and not responsive to the wishes and opinions of EU people.  Well, they do seem serious about getting feedback on this so I strongly urge everyone with an interest in this topic (and I think just about everyone is concerned since you never know who you might fall in love with) to use this opportunity well and wisely.  The deadline is March 1, 2012.   Contact details are here.  They accept contributions via both email and regular mail.

Post-Christmas Purgatory

Christmas is over and "ça ne rigole plus" (no more fun and games) at the Flophouse.  Actually that is a bit of an overstatement - the Frenchlings are still on vacation and there are cookies to be baked, movies to watch, and long lazy evenings in front of the fire.  But every day at 11 am this week the younger Frenchling and I walk up to the Rue Royale in the center of Versailles for a two-hour session at a private tutoring company called Acadomia.

I have a lot of good things to say about the French public school system but I learned early on that it is also a system without mercy and often without much help for those who have trouble keeping up with the coursework.  So the trick is to never let your child get behind in this system.  For us this means purchasing  course review books at the beginning of every summer and spending 1-2 hours a day during vacation making sure the Frenchlings don't forget what they learned during the school year.  It has also meant seeking out private tutors at the first sign of academic difficulty.

The younger Frenchling is in a particularly challenging program.  In a French high school young adults choose an orientation that leads to a particular type of diploma.  For the General Baccalaureate there are three:  Science, Economics and Social Science, and Literature.  The younger Frenchling is doing her Bac in Science, commonly referred to as a Bac S. This stream is heavy on the math and science (Physics and Earth Sciences) and relatively weak when it comes to the "softer" subjects like Philosophy and French.  Even the attitude of the school and the professors is different for the Science students.  It is has not escaped my notice that no one seems to care one whit if one of these students is mediocre in French or Philo-lite but they react very strongly if that child's math grades begin to slip.

The younger Frenchling does just fine in her mathematics classes but, like many French students I've seen over the years, she lacks confidence.  If even the best students are treated as "nuls" (idiots) the others take note and there can be a kind of paralysis caused by fear and anxiety.  It is what it is and my purpose as an immigrant parents is not to criticize the system but to find ways to work with it within the parameters that I've been given.  Hence, a kind of imposed purgatory this week for the younger Frenchling so that the rest of the academic year goes well.

I am still American enough to want to find ways to soften the blow and make the best of things.  We walk to her classes together and while she is studying functions I am taking this opportunity to cruise the quartier (neighborhood).  I'll be posting pictures and commentary this week about some of the places I discover as I walk around the older parts of Versailles.  And when each class is over, I have promised the younger Frenchling a lunch of her choice every single day somewhere in the district near the castle.

Walking in the Light

This morning I am turning the blog over to the younger Frenchling.  She started writing short stories a few years ago and has just finished writing her first fantasy novel.  At this time she is writing in English which certainly warms my heart but I presume she could do as well in French (or perhaps better since French is her first language).  This is something she wrote a few days ago and I liked it so much I asked for her permission to publish it. 

Walking in the Light

In a bright, endlessly clear world, a small child wearing a white dress and her black hair in pigtails looked up at the blue sky. Stretching to the horizon, it seemed distant, yet close enough to touch, if only one would dare reach up and sink their hand into the blank blue canvas and grasp the wonders beyond. Boundless, endless, a time without end.

The child walked, her small feet making ripples on the clear ground. On the other side of it, she could see the Earth, very far away, the ground, the trees, the cities, the fields, the limitless seas. Separated by an invisible barrier on which she walked, the impact of her steps making infinitely small waves, as if she was stepping on a very thin layer of pure water. Looking alternatively at the endless sky above and the active world below, part of both and part of neither, she walked.

The landscape underneath changed, little by little, becoming obscured by clouds every once in a while. This made her slightly sad. She liked looking at the world. She didn’t know if there were people in it, since she was too far away to see, but she liked it nonetheless. It was infinite, like the sky, but in a different way. It always changed, never repeated itself, capturing her attention, while the sky was always the same. Always different, always the same. Consistency. Just not the same kind.

She walked on.

There was no wind; no breath of air stirred the world. Empty, silent, peaceful, lonely, small feet making ripples in thin air, pigtails swaying to the rhythm of an endless walk, the sky gradually growing darker as time turned, undaunted by the timelessness of the empty world. Time has no regard for those who choose to ignore it. She did so. To her, there was only the walk and the endless change of the captivating world below her feet.

She walked on.

The world below gradually lighted up with a million tiny lights, like beacons for a lost soul roaming the heavens. Come here, they seemed to say, here, we are here. Home, perhaps? Not quite.

She stopped walking, the last ripples spreading out and fading into infinity transfixed by the mysterious lights as her world was plunged in darkness, the sky turning an inky color, like soft velvet spread above her, stretching to the limitless horizon. The lights shone warmly, invitingly, beaconing to her. But she couldn’t respond, couldn’t reach them. She walked on rippling, unbreakable air.

She glanced up. The stars shone coldly like a million diamonds swimming in a sea of darkness, like a twisted mirror reflecting the opposite of the world below. Could she reach it? If she stretched out her hand, would she be able to reach the stars? By looking down to an unattainable, forever transient world, what could she attain, I wonder? Reaching down was impossible. Should she reach up, give up the warm lights in favor of the cold stars?

Slowly, hesitantly, she raised her hand. As if walking on an invisible staircase, she walked up, hand outstretched, feet making ripples, higher and higher, up and up, for a very long time, till she was so close it seemed as if she would be swallowed by the stars.

Just one more step.

She took it. In a burst of light and not a sound everything turned white and disappeared into nothingness.

A Cross-Cultural Canticle from a Red, White, and Blue Mother

The title of this post is a riff off the title of an article written by a Chinese-American mother, professor of law at Yale and writer, Amy Chua called "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother." This article was published by the New York Times earlier this year and came under scathing attack almost immediately.

Why all the fuss?  Amy Chua tried to convey to an American audience her personal attitude toward educating her children which is firmly rooted in cultural beliefs that have come down to her through her own family who came from China.  Some of her comments and comparisons were offensive to her readers who were quick to comment and defend the American style of parenting and the school system.

It is very hard to have a cross-cultural conversation on any subject but when it comes to children we are very sensitive and quick to defend our culturally specific methods.  Raising children is something we all care deeply about and I think it provokes more arguments than any other cross-cultural topic.  Most of us are willing to adapt to another culture in some ways but we draw the line when it comes to our offspring.

Amy Chua has drawn such a line between her family and her interpretation of the values and beliefs of the larger culture.  Her article is both descriptive and defensive.

It is descriptive in the sense that she very clearly explains her methods:  no TV, no video games, no play dates and limited extra-curricular activities;  a constant striving to be the best through hard work and persistence combined with a refusal to allow a child to give up just because something is hard; and the use of shame to enforce compliance.

It is defensive in the sense that she felt compelled to explain all this to an audience of a few million people in an article in one of the most widely read newspapers in the United States.  She writes:

There are all these new books out there portraying Asian mothers as scheming, callous, overdriven people indifferent to their kids' true interests. For their part, many Chinese secretly believe that they care more about their children and are willing to sacrifice much more for them than Westerners, who seem perfectly content to let their children turn out badly. I think it's a misunderstanding on both sides. All decent parents want to do what's best for their children. The Chinese just have a totally different idea of how to do that.

This is my way, she says, and it is not inferior to yours.  The broader goal is the same - how we get there can be different and she claims the right to difference when it comes to raising her children.

This might surprise you but I feel a certain kinship with Professor Chua.  I know what it is like to try to raise children a particular way according to a set of values that are not necessarily shared by the people around me.  This has meant that I needed to be very clear in my own mind about what is important to me:  English as an equal language in our household, the transmission of certain values that I received from my American family that that I deem Good (free speech, intellectual inquiry and debate, love of knowledge for its own sake) and a teaching method that relies more on encouragement and less on punishment as a motivator.  Over the years I have had the most difficulty with items one and three.

When my Frenchlings were young and their teachers learned that I spoke English with them  I was told that they would never succeed in the French school system if I didn't start speaking French exclusively at home.  I thought about it, realized that I had hit a hard limit, and decided that this was not in my children's best interests.  From that point on, I simply ignored them.

Amy Chua's description of working with her child on the piano really resonated with me.  I cannot count the number of times I enforced English at home and had to stand firm in the face of the Frenchling's tears.  They thought it was "hard" and I was being "mean."   I made them write "thank you" letters in English.  I refused to allow them to watch videos (no TV in our house but movies were allowed) in French if the original version was in English.   Harry Potter was not permitted in our home until they agreed to read it in English (though I think a French family member took pity on them and slipped them a copy.)  When they spoke to me in French I answered in English.  If they were asking for something, they didn't get it until the request was made in grammatically correct English. The only time I ever lapsed into French was to scold them which has given them a strong aversion to hearing their mother speak French since nothing good ever came of that.  Was this extreme?  Perhaps.  But it worked.  Today the Frenchlings take their English skills for granted and seem to have complete amnesia about my efforts and their resistance.

Just as difficult was the divergence of beliefs about teaching methods.  Here I had to make my peace with the French school system.  Shame and humiliation are regularly used in both the French school system and in the bosom of my French family as a way of motivating children to do better.  I was appalled when the younger Frenchling told me about a child in her elementary school class who failed an exam and had her copy publicly displayed and mocked by the teacher for the edification and general amusement of the rest of the class.  When the child cried and tried to quit the classroom the teacher said, "Go ahead and cry somewhere else.  This will give the rest of us a vacation."  Stories like this made me queasy and had the American friends and family up in arms.  I was under pressure to "do something" about it.  I didn't.  Why?

Some of it had to do with feeling that this was a battle I was not going to win as an immigrant parent and a recognition that it was not my place as a foreigner to try to change the entire public school system culture here to conform to my expectations.  So I tried to suspend my judgement about the methods and concentrated on the results and I liked what I saw.  I liked the academic rigor of the system, I liked the emphasis on hard work and earning a grade.  No favors, no pandering to self-esteem, and no distractions (no extra-curricular activities like after-school sports).   I also noticed that shaming methods may have bothered me but my Frenchlings seemed to take it in stride.   At home I tried to provide a counter-balance by being as encouraging as I could be (that self-esteem thing we Americans prize so much) while supporting the school, the teachers and my spouse's beliefs and practices.

In that spirit I deeply respect Amy Chua's perspective.  I can see a great deal of virtue in her approach though I do not entirely share her values.  It takes enormous courage to defend them in a public forum.  I certainly didn't have that kind of courage but then I am not a citizen of the country in which I live and I think that does make a world of difference.

My only remark is that the home is only one factor among many that form and shape our children.  Whether we like it or not the family is not a hermetically sealed bubble - the larger culture has an interest and a say in shaping its members and citizens.  We can fight it or we can find ways to work with it.

From her piece it seems that she chose the former strategy which I might consider entirely noble if I were not so aware that it can also be limiting and a bit parochial.  It simply ignores all the good things that can come from letting go, opening up to another culture, and allowing the unexpected merits to shine through.  She seems to see it as a battle against the wider culture while I prefer to have an ongoing conversation with it.