French Kids Eat Everything by Karen Le Billon

probably wouldn’t. They would whine (a serious faux pas), react negatively to the food being served (even worse), or refuse to eat (perhaps the worst offense of all).
    My reaction spurred the second big fight of our year in France. I didn’t want to go, and I certainly didn’t want to bring our daughters although all of the other couples were apparently doing so. I didn’t really understand why it was so important that we all go together, but it was clear that it was important to Philippe.
    â€œWe could leave the kids with your parents,” I suggested to my husband one evening.
    â€œBut all of the other children will be there, and they’ll miss out on the fun!” protested Philippe.
    â€œWe won’t start eating until really late, we’ll finish way after midnight, and the kids will be exhausted! You wouldn’t ask them to run a marathon at this age, so why ask them to stay up all night just for a dinner?” I retorted.
    â€œBecause!” snapped my husband, fuming. “That is how I was raised! And that is how French children should be raised!”
    I realized I didn’t really have an answer to that one. That is how French children are raised. From quite a young age, they accompany their parents through long dinners, which sometimes start very late by North American standards. And in France, get-togethers with family and close friends, especially meals, are often multigenerational affairs. In this case, everyone was not only welcome, but also expected to come. From my husband’s perspective, it would be rude not to bring the entire family, as well as unfair to Sophie and Claire to exclude them. “Plus,” he argued, “how do you expect them to be able to handle long dinners well if they don’t start now?”
    I realized that he also had a point here. French kids have more stamina at the table than do most North American adults. I remembered our wedding: dozens of children had come, and they had all sat patiently throughout the entire meal. As we danced until the wee hours, they gradually disappeared without fuss. I later found that their parents had been discreetly bedding them down on a pile of coats and sweaters in a corner, where they slept blissfully while we danced right alongside them.
    In contrast, many of my relatives began retreating before the night was over; they couldn’t quite believe that the eight-course meal started at 9:00 P.M. and still wasn’t finished by midnight. Some of them missed dessert, and quite a few missed the dancing. One of the few exceptions was my eighty-nine-year-old grandmother, who had a strict sense of duty and a secret love of glamour that belied her staunchly Calvinist upbringing. She sat proudly upright in her chair, nodding approvingly as Philippe and I moved onto the dance floor for the opening bridal waltz (one of the few “Americanisms” that I insisted on), and then surprised everyone by spryly accepting her own turn on the dance floor.
    Thinking about the French kids at our wedding, I began to change my mind. It’s true, I thought. Sophie and Claire need to be able to keep up with the other children if they’re going to fit in to French society. Philippe had won the argument.
    Although I didn’t want to admit it, part of me was looking forward to the reunion dinner simply because I was feeling lonely. I hadn’t made many new friends in the village yet. Most people kept their distance.
    True, Philippe had met some old acquaintances. One night when we were out for drinks at the local brasserie, the burly bartender thrust out his hand in greeting. It turned out that he was Philippe’s “cousin” (although that term seemed to be used very loosely in Brittany to refer to any blood relation, no matter how distant). One mother in the schoolyard turned out to be the daughter of one of my mother-in-law’s childhood friends. Another turned out to be the nurse who had