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?

To be honest, if you were not buying them then your children should not have been playing with the teddy things.

Making generalised comments about others parenting skills is a big mistake. But I thought you must be intending to purchase the 'toys' if you let your DCs play with them. However, I put inverted commas around toys because, with wooden sticks in the ears, it doesn't sound as if they could have been meant for children. Were you not tempted to make generalised comment about the lack of health and safety standards in France OP?

i really hope you paid her for the teddies.

Like others have said, it sounds like the shopkeeper was fed up with tourists and you got the brunt. However, you shouldn't have let DC touch or play with toys which were for sale. Unfortunately, things do get damaged accidentally by little hands.

To be fair I never let my children pick up anything that they were not going to buy. It’s the way I was brought up. I have tried this with my grandson, but it’s harder to I enforce because of how parenting is now done these days.

She said she paid for one… not both. I hope only one was broken then…

I’ve been ‘told off’ a couple of times in France but can’t say if the same might have happened anywhere else!

Firstly a woman commented about my ‘poor daughter’ left in the car while I popped into a shop for a few groceries! She was about 15 and wanted to wait in the car, but no, this was bad parenting apparently.

Secondly, I was told I was too strict for trying to hurry the same daughter who was spending a very long time in the museum loo.

Overall I found the whole thing a bit puzzling and felt quite got at!

I was thinking of this exact notice when reading some of this thread. It was ubiquitous in gift shops in the seventies when I was a child. Someone else mentioned seventies parenting as if it were a bad thing. It was certainly stricter than today and smacking was not frowned upon but we were happy and, although we certainly had our moments, we were definitely better behaved. Parents and teachers, indeed any adults reinforced this. We had a lot more freedom in other ways but rules were rules and that was that. We knew from an early age where we stood and, l think, were happier for it. The world revolved around adults rather than children and we knew without being told that we were not allowed to pick up items, never mind play with them unless we were going to buy them. My own children were born in the nineties and I made sure they knew right from wrong. @Turquoiseforever, I think it was very wrong of you to let your children play with the teddies with no intention of buying them. It was a shop, not a playgroup. You should have paid for them once it was pointed out that they were damaged. The shop is this lady's living and she will have made a loss on those toys. If this has been happening àll summer, she will have been watching her profits drain away. No wonder she had had enough and lost her temper. Gentle parenting seems to equate to no parenting from what I can see.

I wouldn't let my children play with something I wasn't going to buy.

Having said that she's offloading an entire summer's worth of badly managed children onto your shoulders.

If this was purely about you being English, that’s called xenophobia. Racism is about skin colour not just nationality.

You probable should not have let them touch stuff but don’t let it ruin your holiday memory’s , no one gets parenting right all the time. It’s clear this lady was already in a particular frame of mind before you even stepped into the shop, this incident was just one of many that she had been dealing with all summer. As for French kids being better behaved compared to other countries 🤣 she was just trying to justify her rant.

I don't know about French children in shops (the ones I saw in soft play were absolutely feral and the parents couldn't have cared less) but, in general, yes, English children are not as well behaved/less is expected of them than some other nationalities.

Shopkeeper sounds anti Brit . A lot of French people are it seems! I’m not over enamoured with sone of the French either but wouldnt dream of lecturing someone on their parenting. You have a shop, with toys, no sign to not touch , then expect possible damage and deal with it as a shop owner!!

I do think that your parenting in this instance is criticism-worthy - you let your kids sit on chairs that were for sale, play with teddies that were for sale and twist and break their ears, which you had no intention of buying. You repeatedly emphasise how “gentle” and “careful” you all were, which only makes me think you weren’t. Your kids also handled a fragile cup and almost knocked over a necklace stand. First of all, don’t take your kids into a shop with delicate items, and second dont let them play with things in a shop.
Generally my observation is that British parenting is often overly permissive - kids dont get told “no”, certainly not in a way that will make them correct their behaviour. And from my limited observations, it’s even worse in North America 😫

There were children's toys, in a tourist shop, not behind glass or on a high shelf, nor bearing any signage to not touch, and British children have touched them. That's her issue? I mean some toothpicks were broken, it's hardly crime of the century or indicative of parenting inadequacies. She sounds tightly wound. Put it out if your mind xx

I think if I had allowed my child had played with something for a significant amount of time I would have bought it. Same goes for things like books, I’ve seen kids being allowed to sit and read for ages then parents have come in and not bought them! I was raised in the 70’s and 80’s and had much firmer boundaries than most kids now. I am not condoning her behaviour but understand why she might have had enough of entitled behaviour. I wouldn’t beat yourself up as you do sound considerate but maybe take it as a bit of a lesson re how we should try and adapt to different expectations and there’s nothing wrong with kids learning at an early age that they can’t touch. We did this very early on, and would remove our child if she didn’t listen. I am also in France atm and I saw 4 teenagers thrown out of the pool today because they were messing around on the slides and then gave lip back to the life guard. They deserved it tbh as they’d been messing around all week, making their presence very felt, just not fair to everyone else. I admired the staff making decisive action for the rest of the guests, not convinced it would happen here as I’ve seen much worse behaviour in a Centre Parc!

Very wrong! 😂Honestly!
What is she doing with teddies with tooth picks in their ears anyway!!

Hello again, decided to pop back on again with an interesting update.

My husband was reviewing our spending tonight and happened to Google the name of the shop I bought the toy from (I'm assuming to figure out what the purchase was related to as he didn't recognise the shop name). Turns out that a day before our visit, there was a review from someone who had bought a pricey "handmade" item of children's clothing from the shop. They later found the remains of a cut-off clothes label inside, and after doing some research they believe the product originally came from Temu!!

In their words they believe this shop is a "tourist scam", so now I'm wondering if I've been done and I'm pretty glad I didn't buy both €28 toys that broke in 2 mins...

Of course, I understand this doesn't change the fact that my feral children rampaged through the shop under my non existing parenting 😉

Thanks for the calm measured comments on here. Some really interesting insights, and I appreciate the kindness and level headedness amongst the classic Mumsnet OUTRAGE and despair!

Brits and their children generally have a reputation in Europe for bad behaviour eg binge drinking and associated brawling particularly in Spain.
And also British (probably German and US children ) not taught how to behave in restaurants.
French Italians and Spanish are taught to appreciate food , the service and the eating is the culture.
Many Brits display an arrogance due to lack of education of other nationalities and the misleading opinions by UK politicians especially in the run up to Brexit that the UK is somehow better and more special than any other country

I'm making a rule of not replying to people in general because I'm not here for petty arguments. However I can't get over this hilarious comment "if you want a high chair, go to McDo's" 🤣 absolutely cracking! What a wonderful improvement to society it would be if the only practical option for eating out with under 2s was to feed them a happy meal. Brilliant.

I'm half French and half English. In France there is an etiquette in shops that doesn't exist in England and is quite old school. You're supposed to say, "Bonjour," politely as you enter and "Merci, au revoir," politely as you leave. A lot of French shops don't allow customers to touch things and quite often have signs saying that. The other thing is that French people are quite direct when they are pissed off and they say what they think more directly than Brits do.

There is a book on the subject of French parenting called, "French Children Don't Throw Food," which might be worth a read if you're interested. I would say overall that French parents do have stricter boundaries (with freedom within the boundaries). However, there are plenty of badly behaved children in France, so it's a generalization. For the most part though, French children are expected to be able to sit for a long time in restaurants, greet people properly etc in a way that isn't always expected in the UK or the US. There is more consideration given to the other people around, rather than expecting everyone to adapt to the children.

I totally get it that you didn't mean to do anything wrong and neither did your children. It's probably also a but stupid to for that lady to have a children's shop in a touristy place and fill it with fragile, delicate things if she is super uptight. However, maybe in future, don't let your kids touch stuff in shops until they are older.

once of twice I’ve noticed French people quite literally screaming at their children at a restaurant table. Hardly that considerate to the other guests, let alone a way to get a consistent message over to children.

I've seen a few French parents vent their frustrations at their clearly dysregulated/overwhelmed and crying young children too over the years. Never in a restaurant though. I think (in general), French parents expect more from their children in terms of behavior than is the norm in the UK. However, their approach may not always be the kindest one.

I'm such a mish mash because I've lived in a few different countries. I try to have the standards of a French parent with more of the warmth of a US parent, with the sense of humor of a British parent, if that makes sense!

It does! @Flippingnora100

You quote my entire post and all you can pick up on my saying that the OP's behaviour was wrong in this instance. You then go on to imply that because the teddies had toothpicks in their ears it was somehow the shopkeeper's fault the toys were broken as they were dangerous in any case. Unbelievable.