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?

You sound like a typical irritating tourist and if she doesn’t want to have to deal with with irritating tourists she probably should not run a seaside shop in a resort

However you should have immediately offered to pay for the broken toys and gone back to purchase them.

You should never let your children pick things up in a shop - “look don’t touch” is ALWAYS the rule

The toys and chairs were her stock. Your parenting was lax. Using the word racist when you don’t seem to even know what it means shows you are part of the whole problem in this country at the moment.

You sound like pne of those gentle parents. ( shudder%).

(Shudder!)

As I kid I was always told “You look with your eyes and not with your hands” and woe betide if I deviated from that rule - I would get a proper telling off. No way would I have ever been allowed to pick up a teddy that wasn’t being purchased for me.

I don’t think she was wrong to confront you over the damages - and she wouldn’t have had to have that conversation in public but for the fact that you left the shop. She had no choice but to address you publicly if she wanted to talk to you. Plus your children damaged her stock, which is her livelihood, you can’t blame her for being somewhat irate.

I think any xenophobic, generalising comments are at best unhelpful and at worst prejudiced. Whoever’s mouth they come out of. Absolutely no excuse for it.

Parents who can’t be arsed to parent exist in every country throughout the globe. It’s nothing to do with where you are from, but everything to do with how you bring up your kids, some kids need much more parenting (are full on and completely exhausting) than other children. But all parents do a huge disservice to their children, and their children’s future, if they can’t be bothered or don’t know how to parent. You could be from a wealthy background or impoverished background, you could be from a remote area or an urban area, you could be from any of the four corners of the earth, you’ll still get parents who are good at parenting, parents who are mediocre at parenting, parents who struggle at parenting (and society has no idea how to help these parents) and parents who can’t be arsed or just totally clueless. The thing is, parenting is generally; learned from our own parents; massively underrated as a skill; left to one parent more than the other; bloody hard work; easy to criticise; needs a certain amount of common sense; confidence in your own convictions; relies a lot on trail and error; has constantly moving goal posts from psychologists and psychiatrists on how to effectively correct children without causing harm…..
which leaves me scratching my head as to why anyone would want to be a parent!

So you go to a foreign country, don't obey the social norms, your children damage someone's property as a result, and you're upset that the shopkeeper expressed her frustration that this is common behaviour from certain other nations? And instead of thinking, maybe she has a point, maybe we should learn how they do things here, and not break other people's stuff, you cry xenophobia.

It's really not. It's xenophobia at a push, but really it's just frustration at cultural differences.
And would the Hate Crime unit be involved in this matter?

i used to think I was a little strict as my children were not allowed to touch or pick up a thing in a shop when they were little.
This is probably due to me (as a kid growing up in the 80’s). I once broke something whilst on holiday in Cornwall and was scolded for it which resulted in me handing over my pocket money. I still do not touch anything in shops to this day unless I plan to purchase as I am known for being rather clumsy 🤣🤦‍♀️

An excellent post.
It's called common sense and respect. I wonder what happened to those?
Unfortunately now It's one big massive blame game. You can't breathe for offending someone.
Look at what the poster (who said she was a policewoman ) wrote earlier in this thread. She said she works in the 'Hate crime unit' and that the french shopkeepers comment WAS racist. Not even xenophobic but racist.
Unbelievable.
This is why it is all out of control. It's bonkers.

My DS is 3 and my brother lives in France with his French partner and has a nephew there via the French partners side of the family. The nephew is about 6 months younger. Their children behave way better but I also believe they seem less free to be little and are more mini adults even at 3. Lifestyle is different. Also they seem to have more childcare as standard. My ds has not been to childcare yet. I wouldn’t say one was better than the other just different.

we spent 10 days in France last month and I’ll be honest, it gave me food for thought. The children we came across were impeccably behaved. Every child was well mannered and respectful and I didn’t witness a singe tantrum from any French children. It actually caused me and my partner to squabble because I was embarrassed by my toddlers tantrums. They have parenting down to a t. However they also should understand that other countries have different parenting techniques and you didn’t deserve to be made to feel like that.

Can I just point out that British and English are different. Many of you interchange both like they are the same thing and they are not. Geography needs to be learned. However you should not have let your kids twist ears etc. perhaps the shop lady felt that she had a Summer of destructive kids from many nationalities

It sounds like it was the metaphorical straw which broke the camel’s back. It sounds like she’s had many incidents like this and just snapped. She shouldn’t have done it and should have stuck to the facts of what happened, but I understand why she responded as she did.

To be fair too it does sound like you behaved somewhat oblivious if your children touched so many items and created so much damage. It doesn’t sound as though they were supervised very well by you. I would say don’t take it to heart that you are a bad parent or anything at that extreme, but own the mistake and educate your children on how to behave in shops in future. Either that or provide closer supervision.

As my wife is French we have spent almost every summer in France for more than 40 years, including with our children when they were young. Whilst the shopkeeper was out of order in the way she reacted, I have to say I would not have let my children play with toys (and picking up a toy by a 3 or 5 year old = 'playing with') unless I intended to buy them. Did you buy the toys?

FYI when we started visiting France in the early 1980s there was hardly any 'fast food' in most towns; that's not the case now, and some (many?) older French people will blame the USA (or 'the Anglo-Saxons', so the USA & us) for this decline in standards.

And as a former teacher I can certainly confirm that groups of French school children are no better behaved than English ones.

She definitely overreacted but I do basically go into any shop with my just turned 7yo and ask her not to touch anything. Particularly in France when holidaying.

She did not, but I kinda assume she is white British. (and this is not a racial comment, this is how the classify the ethnicity at the GP, so...)

Definitely agree with pps who said you don't let children play with anything in a shop you don't intend to buy. It's hard sometimes to stop them touching, but necessary.

However, after spending my last holiday in France I have seen exactly the same behaviour from French children as I've seen in England.

I lived in.France for many years, now back in the UK. French children are generally very well behaved. You go in a restaurant and very rarely do children shout, leave their seats or do anything they shouldn't. English children on the other hand get away with murder. I am not anti children as I have children and grandchildren.

There seems to be a conscious (and some times just ignorant) movement to dilute the term racism so much that it means very little and loses potency - particularly by dissociating it from skin colour.

Xenophobic I think. But you've only to look at threads on here to know that everyone speaks in absolutes - all mothers in law, all only children , all Tory voters etc - so she is just doing what most of us do.

But op that is where look with your eyes and not with your hands comes in.

I suggest a good number of people plonk xenophobia as a compartment of racism. It's a much lesser used word even if in this instance it's a more accurate term.

I was brought up to look and not touch from an early age. My sister and I could be left to wander through a glassware shop and could be trusted not to break anything or cause a nuisance. Expectations were set before we even placed a foot over the door. This is coming from an early 80’s kid. There would be hell to pay and the mum stare if you misbehaved or never used your manners.
You let your kids ruin her stock. I’d be pissed off.

She’s correct. English parenting is generally very bad (half the posts on here contain examples). Obviously those people have no idea they are terrible parents, but they are.

What I can’t say is whether French parenting is particularly better or not. I’d be surprised if it was.

Exactly! In the little mom and pop markets they don't let you touch the PRODUCE!!