French shopkeeper thinks English parenting is terrible

[Turquoiseforever]

Long one sorry, but I've included details to try and give an accurate picture!

Holidaying in France currently and have had a memorable incident in a shop today that has given me some food for thought, just interested in other people's thoughts on this.

Gave my oldest kids (3 & 6) €5 each to buy a souvenir of their choice at our local seaside town. Most shops turned out to be quite bougie and aimed at adults, but saw one which looked hopeful. Had an A-frame sign outside with a plastic colourful beach windmill on it, and a rack of children's clothes. Went in and quickly realised it was again full of very valuable things. At one end was a basket of handmade crocheted teddies, handmaid kids clothing, and some wooden toys. The kids took a look at the teddies, picked one up each then sat in two kids chairs holding them on their laps for a few minutes while I had a quick look round the shelves around them. We had a look at a few other things together, for full disclosure: when we entered my 3yo picked up a very delicate cup which I quickly set down and reminded her not to do. As we were leaving my 6yo very gently pointed out a necklace to me on a very flimsy stand that started to tip over, which I caught before it fell and set upright again. They looked at a few other things without incident or touching.

We didn't spend long, said merci and went on our way. About 10 mins later a lady from the shop approached us in the street and informed me my kids had broken two toys in her shop. We went back with her and found out that the rabbit teddies they had been holding had some very thin toothpick-like sticks of wood in each ear (to shape them a bit) which had been broken by my daughters twisting the ears, pretending to give them a 'hair style'. I had no idea at all they had been broken. Obviously this is my responsibility and error of judgement, and was totally correct to be brought to my attention.

However, the lady also subjected me to a rant about how French children would NEVER pick things up in a shop, they are taught "limits", whereas all summer she has had English, German etc children visiting and breaking things and being given "no limits" by their parents. Complained we had left the place a mess and her husband had to tidy behind us, because the teddies were placed back in the basket but not sat upright as previously displayed (I had set the chairs back carefully but admittedly been distracted from checking the basket).

I pushed back (calmly!) on her generalised critique of my parenting, and she said she has just lost patience after a summer full of similar experiences and essentially admitted this lecture wasn't personal. Still, it was pretty heavy handed to give in public in front of my children and other customers.

To be clear I know I made an error. We had been in a few quite breakable shops already which required heavy parenting, and I guess I saw an opportunity for a quick relief for us all. Normally I would supervise my children looking at anything handmade, so it was a lax moment, but I did think they were just wool and stuffing and wouldn't suffer at all from light playing. Also, typically I wouldn't take my children into these kind of shops. They have never broken anything in a shop before!

I just wonder how humbled I should be. Did I just catch this lady on a really bad day? Was she a bit racist? Are french children really that obedient all the time? Should I strike it off as a bad day and move on without too much thought, or do I take the criticism on board more strongly and accept I should be stricter with things like this and re-evaluate my parenting?! Do we really have much lower standards in the UK?

It's a shame, we've had a lovely holiday but now I feel like we're not that welcome here and have been judged/looked down on in general. Do we really have a terrible reputation in France?

We have just finished our supper at a Michelin starred restaurant with many French children present - all on iPads and sternly told off for even speaking. The English families here and other nationalities do not have gadgets, and are engaging in conversion.. French children are overly disciplined, and not in a good way. It’s all very 1970s tbh.

The lady needs to rearrange her shop to make it more user friendly.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/37/section/28

For interest, the wide definition of racial group in a.28(4) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1988 relevant to racially aggravated offences in England and Wales.

It’s definitely not all English children, but I do witness some very slack parenting and some very vile children, and I observe this most amongst English children. I’m not English and neither is my husband, we both grew up here but were parented very diffently to our English friends, and we are constantly astounded by the behaviour of some of the children we come across! We are also often told how well behaved our children are by teachers, other parents, friends and strangers which makes me think it’s not the norm.

So unless they only behave when with thier parents

This is exactly what obedience-based parenting creates, TBF. If you focus too much on obedience, especially enforced by fear of punishment, it creates an environment where the children will know exactly how they are expected to behave, and appear to behave perfectly if they think their parents will get to hear about it, but whenever they are in an environment where their parents won't, they do what they want because they haven't been taught why to behave that way.

The lady needs to rearrange her shop to make it more user friendly.

Maybe she doesn’t wants children to be “users” of her shop?

I’m looking forward to OP coming back and arguing with everyone who has said she’s been unreasonable. We’ve not had a fun MN bunfight in a while.

FWIW I think OP isn’t even close telling the whole truth. A six year old doesn’t ever “very gently point out a necklace”. A mother shouldn’t ever take two young children into a gift shop and let them pick up and mangle whatever they want and sit in chairs that aren’t for them. Appalling behaviour.

Placing toys at children’s eye level is leveraging pester power and I can’t really get worked up at parents letting their dc play with toys they can reach, that they don’t intend to buy that day. Particularly when they’re packaged with parts exposed and display mode turned on. We spent plenty of money over the years in toy shops, and encouraged relatives to buy some of those enticing toys for birthdays and at Christmas , so I doubt those manufacturers and retailers are complaining.

But what’s reasonable in somewhere like Smyths or Toys R Us, that build those costs into their business model isn’t acceptable in a small family run boutique. I think you misjudged that op.

I don’t think French and British dc are significantly different as much as French and British parents are. I used to tell mine to “look with your eyes not with your hands” which seemed to be much more reasonable to them than “don’t touch” which seemed to give them unbearably itchy fingers!! Not about being strict, as much as preempting the inevitable and saving my energy.

I don’t think French kids are better behaved. They sit nicely with adults until dismissed, but when they are they’re wild.

If it's not already been mentioned you should really read 'French kids don't throw food'.

Get a grip.

You did pay her though op? Surely? All annoyances aside, your dc did damage the items. They shouldn’t be ‘cuddling’ any items they haven’t paid for.

Sorry but you were in the wrong and i don't blame her for lecturing you Your children shouldn't be sitting on chairs and touchong things. One parent looks after the children while the other has a look around and them swap.

I've 5 daughters and none of them would ever have sat down or touched toys in a shop

Time to improve your parenting

French kids with their parents is one thing, but let’s not forget the french school trips and the competitive shoplifting which is almost a tradition. along with the loudness, smoking, walking 6 abreast down the high street etc. Maybe it’s because their strict french parents aren’t around. In which case we have to feel sorry for their teachers, and also the English shopkeepers.

I think that as a very loose generalisation, French children may show respect to their parents more obviously than (very loosely again) British children do. The French teenage children that I mixed with on exchange trips, seemed to behave quite differently when not with their parents, and when not in the setting of a school room. They certainly weren't noticeably 'naughty', or do anything really that could have been considered badly behaved, I suppose that they were just far more relaxed and up for a laugh when we were mixing socially, without any of their significant adults being around. Yes, we can probably say that we all behave differently when just among our peers, but their behaviour seemed more starkly different than that of my British friends when we were on our own terf.

Sorry, I'm not explaining this very well; on the surface I don't suppose that our behaviours (British v French teenagers), looked very different, but many of the French children did seem to somehow have a riskier 'edge' to their behaviour when not at home. I think that on the whole it probably came down mainly to how the French children were generally disciplined more strictly at home than we British ones were, but that they were also more willing to push boundaries when not under the direct influence of their parents?

I am considering deleting this completely, as it seems very wishy washy, with no real substance to it, but I will leave it, if only to give the usual Mumsnetter haters something to have a snipe about!

Your children were clumsy and lacked parental boundaries, they damaged stock
shopkeeper was right
it wasn’t racism as it wasn’t directed globally at everyone as a general slur . It was factual observation of your children breaking items

That's not common at all. You just correctly used prejudiced - best to stick with that.

I was in Germany last week and the petrol station worker basically told us to do something very directly, implying we are in the wrong, and then carried on serving us. I loved it! It’s expecting social responsibility and demanding it when it’s missing.

We did comment that if it was an employee at a British petrol station they wouldn’t have said anything- either because of politeness, or they just can’t be bothered.

I realise your situation is different but it seems to boil down to that directness to demand responsibility from others, which I think is a very good thing for society overall. I wouldn’t take it personally too much but would learn from it (kids too young to be allowed to handle things in shops like that).
I think the attitude in the UK is different and it’s ok to admit that.

I would like to know where this is because I would like to go there.

The shops and bougie area sound just like the sort of seaside French town I would like.

My kids were born and brought up in France and as a family we all find British parenting a bit light touch. A lot of British mothers seem to spend a lot of time feeling guilty, which seems unfair, when their lives revolve around their kids so much.
Pretty much all our kids here in France go into childcare at 3 months and mums go back to work so the kids are brought up by “the village” in a way. So they have more rules from the get go. It’s just our normal. It’s not perfect and mine were certainly a bit wilder than many.

She was right. You were wrong

That's just reminded me of last weekend when I was in a local library and a dad was letting two of his young boy climb up the bookshelves. He actually commented at one point that he was proud of their ingenuity in entertaining themselves (obviously all the shelves of books, puzzles and games weren't going to cut it). Every word was also shouted at the top of their voice, but again he made no effort to ask them to lower the volume even just a fraction.

A few members of staff were worriedly hovering nearby but none seemed to want to speak to him and I left because the noise was doing my head in so no idea if/how it was resolved.

I get your point, although I’m afraid the link didn’t work for me. I’m assuming it’s about both race and nationality being viewed as equal? I know there isn’t a universal definition of race, but I think language and distinctions still matter. Take the shopkeeper example: she was clearly xenophobic, showing disdain because the OP had a British accent. If the OP learned French and raised her children in a “French” way, that prejudice would probably fade - she wouldn’t seem foreign anymore.

Skin colour, though, can’t be changed, so prejudice based on race tends to persist, no matter how much someone assimilates. Both cases are discrimination, but lumping them together can hide the fact that some forms of prejudice are more deep-rooted. For me, it’s important to make the distinction, because the experiences are different, even if the underlying issue is the same.

However, I appreciate you made your comment earlier based on the most up to information available, so my apologies.

We holiday in france, I've seen many children openly hit over the years, even very small children. We were on a packed beach last year and a man was shouting and hitting a 2 year old, the entire beach ignored it. I was so upset (one of our children was the same age) I was actually too scared to intervene, he was with his wife and another child, she did nothing. French parenting at it's finest.

We've found some french really don't like English too, some are incredibly rude when they realise you are English, could be a bit of this. We go to the same place and always see the same French people, they are lovely, but out and about they are so rude, absolutely no concept of wait your turn and don't expect them to stop for you to cross on a crossing, even with a baby in a pram they are sailing right past!

Ooof come on, you guys were so out of order.

The poor woman had to come and find you.

I hope you apologised and paid for the teddies that were damaged.

It sounds like the woman was frank with you, something we perhaps need more of today.

Obviously you shouldn't generalise every person from one country in a big sweeping statement. And kids on holiday with relaxed parents are probably more unruly- whatever their nationality.

Heavy parenting shouldn't be necessary to stop your children breaking things in shops. You should have left them outside with the other parent if they can't be trusted.