Living in France, feeling I will never ever fit in here. All because of a school trip.

[Greythorne]

we live in France. DH is French.

Kids go to local school. I find I have to take a big gulp and accept the "culture clash" about tonnes of things and I am willing to do so because the kids are half French and hey, we live here, so I have to.

But tonight i feel near tears because we have just got a letter home from school to say there is a school trip for DD1 in a few weeks, just before the end of the school year. Dd1 is 5 years 5 months and in the equivalent of Year Reception.

The school is organising a trip for 5 days to a riding stables about 60 miles away. 5 days. 4 nights.

I just don't feel she is ready for this. I just feel I am not ready for this. I am just sick and tired of always feeling out if step with my community, with the school, with the people who should be my peers.

I mentioned my concerns to another mum, who just laughed it off and said, "tu sais, il faut couper le cordon un jour!" (you know, one day you have to cut the cord).

The trip is not mandatory but the teacher is putting pressure on parents to let their kids attend as it will be the culmination of a whole project about farms, horses, whatever.

I am just so demoralised. I try and I try to fit in here but this is just too much. I have read so many threads on MN about school trips / scout trips / what have you and I tend to agree with the posters who say: let them go, let them spread their wings, they will be safe.

But never have I seen a trip for 5 days at 5 years old.

I feel sick.

So who's right then? I think that it is an individual choice to make, but perfectly reasonable to organise a residential trip for 5 yrs old, because a good number will have a lovely time.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I think the key is how does your dd feel about it? If she is excited and wants to go, I would let her go. I would arrange with school though that they should phone if she feels unhappy/homesick/ill so you can come and pick her up if necessary.

If your dd does not want to go, then I would decline and explain to school that she is not ready yet.

I don't think that residential trips for five year olds are that unusual BTW.

About the feeling that you do not fit in, have you discussed it with your DH? Maybe he can help you building bridges with other mums/school?

Love a quoting thread.
By that time we are only a step away from calling each other nazis.

Or maybe collaborators ;)

As dikkertjedap and various other largely ignored voices have said, the trip issue should be about how the 5 year old child feels, not about how the mum feels. If the child wants to go the separation si not "forced". These things are about the child but somehow they become about the parent, which is wrong.

The feeling different and not fitting in is the other issue, a lot of us feel like that if we are living in very different cultures.

Both those issues have got lost in discussions of national traits as seen in adults, and whether these can be attributed to education systems, which is nothing to do with the OP!

On the fitting in front I must say that although I don't fit in here (Germany) my kids do, and I think that is more important. Also experience of living here is making it harder to fit in with my British friends, who seem to love to get outraged about school issues like teachers not wiping NT children's bottom or various other things which would just be ridiculous here, where children are expected to and can take a lot more responsibility for themselves. I am always now amazed at the constant hovering supervision of 6 year olds etc. I read a post on "chat" where a 6 yo had broken an expensive play kitchen and many posters said "well now you've learnt she is too young to play without your supervision"

Living long enough in another culture can leave you out of step with both where you live AND where you come from...

I think that wiping 5 year old bottoms here is ridiculous too! They are still expected to manage it by school age!
. I agree with dikkertjedap.

Exactly thatisnotitall and dikkerjedap

*NotSureICanCarryOn" - "TBH I am very annoyed with people like Bonsoir who think it's OK to destroy the french on the ground that they can never do anything right. 'Oh and look at them as adults, they are all anxious people who don't like trying new things'.
"

You should learn to read English, NotSureICanCarryOn.

Say NON! France or not...you're her Mum and you know best.

People have been posting in response to what the OP's trip represents - this is an issue of fitting in. The trip just precipitated feelings of differentness. Different cultural expectations surely means analysing why people act that way? As the OP was set in a school context, educational cultural normes etc have a lot to do with the OP.

I live in Belgium and an identical trip was organised in maternelle for dd's class. She was the only one that didn't go. I didn't give it a second thought to be honest. There was no way she was ready for that and I didn't care what the others thought. My ds's went on a skiing trip for three weeks at the age of 10/11!! (They were fine though and when dd went it had been reduced to two weeks and she was fine with that.) I've been here 27 years now and have long since accepted that I will never totally fit in here. The Belgians are just so different from the Brits and although I speak both languages and have Belgian friends, I still feel more comfortable with my English-speaking friends.

Cote, have you read this book?: www.amazon.fr/ach%C3%A8ve-bien-%C3%A9coliers-Peter-Gumbel/dp/2246759315/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337759103&sr=1-1

He lectures in a French university and basically says what you say: "Lack of confidence, reluctance to step outside the box or to speak out, great need to conform, curiously low individual drive and ambition." I see this with the Belgian system here. The students are not encouraged to think for themselves and the teachers seem keener to pick out their faults rather than praise their achievements.

LeBFG
precisely!

The trip is neither here nor there, really. DD does not want to go at all. We don't want her to go and don't see any educational value above what she could gain from a day trip.

So, she won't be going.

But what made me want to cry the night we got the letter from school was the sense of isolation and sense of not getting this place.

Yes, LeBFG, but the conclusion has been that the system is basically creating adults with no self confidence etc, that these trips are insane, etc.
I can't discuss the traits of the french population, apparently, nor the merits of the education system.
The Op should stick to her principles, even if she doesn't fit in. When we lived in the Uk I kept putting a jacket on my dc, regardless of how other children were dressed... .

i still maintain that for the children who are ready these trips are a great experience.

The trips themselves aren't insane but forcing or pressuring children to go is, IMO. And it's that kind of pressure which is exerted throughout childhood along with the 'toughen em up' attitude which produces insecure adults.

Says an anxious and insecure Brit

"the teachers seem keener to pick out their faults rather than praise their achievements"

I agree with this. It is because school starts with the premise of there being a "perfect child" model, and all children are measured against the "perfect child" - the "faults" is the delta between your DC and perfection.

What puzzles me more than anything is that if you take the "perfect child" model to its logical conclusion (in France, at least) and have a child who gets 20/20 in every subject, he/she is going to be a severely dysfunctional and unbalanced individual...

I have lived in a few countries including France and all had some different parenting quirks and I didnt really fit in but tbh I didnt really mind. Childrearing is so personal anyway.

In Ireland (where I am from) parenting is far more relaxed than the UK although that is changing
In New York the hothousing and pressure were phenomenal and I was there with a newborn
In London the endless group activities were exhausting
In Paris the slapping and shouting are a bit much but there is a lot to be said for their more relaxed and selfish style of parenting

OP I wouldn't tend to let a 5 year old go for that long but could you condense it to 2 nights and blame it on family commitments?

I have come across Bonsoir on threads and I dont find her particularly critical of the French, she just tends to observe the differences.

I think it's beyond the pale to start bashing other cultures, particularly cultures that are so similar to our own (we are not comparing UK with Afghanistan fgs). There are general characteristics that mark cultures: at uni, many brits had difficulty with many Norwegians for instance, very direct and humourless was the general remark. Identifying the differences and thinking about the other culture's pov helped enormously e.g. one norwegian said the brits are a bit deceitful the way everything is 'please' thankyou' etc (a bit like some people comment about americans saying have-a-nice-day when they don't mean it) and he valued directness as a sign of honesty.

I am used to ex-pats (brits and others) french-bashing and find this embarrassing and upsetting at times. They point out the differences and deem them to be inferiour ("french aren't as entrepreneurial as us brits who are starting crap businesses up all the time").

Parenting varies so much between individuals as well as between cultures that I think making sweeping statements along the lines of "French parents/schools force kids to be indepedent too soon and results in a population of insecure adults" is a bit much frankly. There could be a multitude of reasons for the perceived differences....and almost certainly are.

OP, I have been there too (not France but country with similar culture).

It can be so exhausting to always be "the foreigner", for people to always pick up on your "different" ways ("Oh do you have tea? not coffee? Of course, where you are from that is normal" etc etc,, not unkindly meant).

I have lived in Argentina where kids were sent to school at 2 (!!!), and school days run from 8-5, yet kids don't go to bed until 11 (Birthday party for 5 year olds ending at 9, anyone?), and kids don't have to eat vegetables. The people were nice enough, but I never fitted in with the other mums and even on mums' nights out (when they kindly included me) I felt so different, did not get any jokes or cultural references.

It IS exhausting, but you can make things better, for example, by not making this a "French" issue but by making it about something with your DD (she does not want to go). And by keeping an open mind that other things there may actually eb better (food, etc.)

BTW: I now live in the UK and feel I completely fit in (not sure what English people think about that ), yay

LeBFG - sweeping statements about insecure adults are a bit silly I agree but commenting on cultural differences is pretty normal.

I think the parenting styles of the French and English are very different so I dont think anyone is over stating them

Recently, the owner/director of a long-standing US summer camp was at our home. He was doing his annual tour of Europe and Latin America, where he meets the families of the children who wish to attend his camp. The camp was started by his parents 84 years ago and has been in the family ever since and, for the past 40 years, the camp has recruited 50% international (ie non-US) children.

The owner/director made comments about the common national characteristics he finds in the children from different countries. Is that unreasonable? Is it unreasonable for him to say, based on his extensive experience, that he is wary of recruiting French children because they are, on average, more anxious and find it more difficult to adapt to unknown situations that any other nationality (again, on average) he recruits?

Errm, I, probably very badly, was trying to make the point that talking about cultural differences was OK, normal and could often be beneficial e.g. discussing why the differences exist, that being 'direct' for one party is 'being honest' for the other. Mutual understanding etc is to be applauded.

Making crass generalisations, though, with the implication of 'we're better them them' makes my blood boil. Perjortive terms like 'anxious' are not helpful - find a less contentious way of putting it, for example: french are more risk adverse and thus take out more insurance than the english.

The second point I tried to make is that it is pretty silly to say things like the country is full of anxious adults because of one thing like 'the education system'.

surrounded I totally get you, I lived in Norway for 7 years with my Norwegian husband and had 2 kids there, we are in Sydney now, and getting rose tinted glasses for the good Scandinavian things, mostly related to being a family friendly society. We will be moving back there next year. I feel it is something I am doing for them, so they will grow up in a country they can be proud of and will look after them with regards to education and healthcare and equality and opportunity for women (I have 2 girls). I on the other hand, will always feel like an outsider, and reading your comments really resonated with me, it really feels like I will be sacrificing an element of who I am (due to being lost in translation) for the long term good of the family.

Le BFG, my Belgian friends complain more about the Belgian school system than most of my British friends who have children in the schools. There is undoubtedly a huge difference between it and the British system and therefore it is not unreasonable to think that this system, where they spend 15 years of their lives, will have a huge impact on how they are as adults. Lots of learning by rote, exams twice a year from the age of 6, continual assessment, the latter two combining to give an overall percentage at the end of the year and if you don't make the grade, you have to repeat the year. The general attitude is "this is the level, if you don't make it, tough, you repeat". It's relentless.

As bonsoir says, "school starts with the premise of there being a "perfect child" model, and all children are measured against the "perfect child" - the "faults" is the delta between your DC and perfection".

"But what made me want to cry the night we got the letter from school was the sense of isolation and sense of not getting this place."

Yes, Greythorne I think that is it. You are very integrated by the sounds of things and noticing how your own way of bringing up dc and what feels right to you is in conflict with what seems to be the general consensus where you live. It is a very personal thing, how you want to bring up your dc and it is difficult if your ideas are different to the bulk of the parents around you, the schools and nurseries. As Chandon said below about her experiences in Argentina, you notice the other parents around you have a common understanding about a lot of these issues which you don't share.

Perhaps you can avoid discussing this trip much and simply write to the school that dd will not be attending the camp. Finish. If anyone tried to draw me further into what I thought would be criticism and in the end a fruitless discussion, I would say something like, "I have weighed it up in my mind and made my decision" or simply "it won't be possible this year for family reasons". And not allow myself to be drawn any further. "I am afraid I can't go into it" or something like that is not impolite really just draws the line.

The thing we have to accept is that no place/people is going to change to suit us, so it isn't actually worth getting into a discussion about it IMO. It is OK and even I think healthy to stand apart a bit sometimes if it is important to you. She will go on trips in time and she won't be an outsider for not going. There's a lot of scare-mongering about this time of thing if you decide not to involve your dc in a collective experience. It is not the end of the world for you, the dc or the other parents or the school.

I agree with Longtime - there is a lot of open discussion in France about how the education system contributes to making French adults anxious. It's not considered silly or irrelevant - by the French themselves.

In the past, French children went on colonies de vacances (holiday camps) away from their parents from as young as 4 for a fortnight, several times a year. My DP and his brother did this as children. The trend, for many years now, has been moving away from sending children on long overnight trips, be they colonies or school trips. While some schools do still take very small DCs (maternelle) on school trips, this is less and less the case.

I'm just a bit surprised at the word anxious being used to describe the french. Ex-pats often bandy about the word arrogant, but never anxious. I have to say I know of no french adults who could be described as being anxious.

Many factors may contribute to making a person anxious and, of course, their experiences at school could well be a factor. I would very much like to read a link to the open debate Bonsoir and bring it up with friends for discussion.

I'm led to believe that there is also continual assessment and relentless SAT testing in UK schools. Rote learning is also heard of. No system is perfect, and ideed the idea of 'perfect' is culture-sensitive and changes as trends come and go. I'm not trying to defend french education policy - I'm sure there are many advocats of the system too if you go and ask - it just depends on you POV.