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?

And she is right. English children in general have terrible manners compared to their European counterparts.

Seriously? If your children had broken two toys in a shop because you hadn't been supervising them, and the owner could no longer sell them, you'd lecture the owner? WTF?

If I saw a child playing with a soft toy's ears, I would NOT expect those ears to contain toothpicks! What if you bought them, gave them to a small child, the ears broke (obviously) and the stick stabbed the kid? Worse, the small child could get a piece of the damn stick stuck in their throat. There are actually laws about this kind of thing, in the EU and UK alike.

Well, France is in the EU, so it was probably labelled as being unsafe for small children.

So much easier to be all bolshy indignant behind a keyboard though isn't it. Although if you have a nice flag handy to proudly show off your Britishness I'm sure that'll show them.

I have a perfectly sound backbone thanks, maybe keep an eye on your kids in shops and don't them mess about and break things in shops that you have no intention of buying in shops would be my advice.

I know France is in the EU, that's why I mentioned it.

So we're now assuming the OP ignored the sign saying "8+ ans" and also assuming the shopkeeper didn't see a pair of toddlers playing with the toys.

Let's not even start wondering why a shop full of children's clothes and toys appears to be selling toys that aren't meant to be played with?

I think the point here is that the OP allowed her children to pick up the teddies and handle them. They were either display models - hence the toothpicks - or they were never intended to be played with and were just ornamental. Had OP not been so bloody entitled as to allow her children things to play with that she never intended to buy, at the point of sale it may have been pointed out that they were not meant as playthings, the toothpicks would have been pointed out/removed, or a none display item would have been provided. This is entirely on OP not the shopkeeper.

The toys were not meant to be played with. It's not a playgroup.
They're there to be sold.
If items are not suitable, they will be labelled as such. However, I doubt whether the OP was in the frame of mind to check this.

Well I don’t think the shop was exclusively for children if it was selling expensive and delicate items such as cups and necklaces, so it’s entirely possible that the teddies were decorative and not meant to be played with. Had OP checked she probably would have realised that.

You don’t play with toys in a toy shop? It’s not like the early learning centre in the 80’s. You buy toys in a toy shop, then then you can play with them

The poster said the children behave better. They don’t. And whatever discipline they use to get their children to be quiet in a restaurant certainly doesn’t translate to well behaved children from the age of 10 up in particular.

It’s so funny that you think telling rude people to get fucked is aligned with nationalism. Just the most bizarre and weirdly illogical correlation. Not letting people speak to you like shit without a mouthful has nothing to do with nationalism. Children break things. If you have a store that sells delicate children’s items, you are at least partly culpable for them breaking if they are within reach of small hands. There is nothing wrong with pointing out a breakage and asking for payment for broken items. To do so while rudely berating a mother in front of her children deserves short shrift. That so many mumsnetters are hand wringing over a couple of broken sticks in handmade teddies, and failing to see the larger picture of contempt is … well peak mumsnet! 😂😂

No shopkeeper is culpable if unsupervised children break items on sale.

The amount of pretzeling going on to blame the shop keeper for their own stock getting broken rather than the parents is also peak Mumsnet!

Yep, which is typical British behaviour at any age, hence all the litter and dog mess we see in the UK.

Blame someone else, esp if its a foreigner.

Exactly this, if I have to say it twice I say “once more and we’ll have to leave” I also haven’t had to follow through with that, and my two are Neurodiverse so have impulse control difficulties. They know we would leave though, because I don’t say things I don’t mean.

Very challenging with neurodiverse children, so well done for working on behaviour and reinforcement.

When we went to France I loved seeing how well behaved French children were. We don't allow our kids to play with toys in shops but that does seem to be normal British parenting now.

You might need more training. I would call it xenophobia not racism.

Agree.

Not true.. Plenty of British mums parent properly minus the need to copy French mums.

True. Happens all over uk and it’s always English kids. I have never seen an Indian, Chinese or polish origin kid behave like that.

How is it racist? Unless the family was Muslim/black and the French are very bigoted to those groups.

Jesus Christ give it a rest 😂

Yep! Can’t stand it. Last time I went cinema a dopey mum let her 2 toddlers walk around the cinema even walk in front of where people was sitting which is a very narrow gap , kick seats and dance in front of the screen. The staff did nothing 😡