French Kids Eat Everything (15 page)

So more than 90 percent of French kids eat their evening meal at home every day, with all of their family members. In contrast, only 40 percent of American adolescents and 55 percent of kids under eleven eat dinner with their families every day. And one in three eat with their families less than three times per week.

But French families do eat together, and most do so every day of the year. This provides ample opportunities for teaching kids about food. And one of the most important things French children learn at these meals is that “new is normal.” French adults love variety and will eat varied diets as a matter of course. Naturally, their children grow up to do the same. This was even evident in the comments people made in passing about food choices.

“I had an apple yesterday, so I'll have a peach today,” my mother-in-law would say, when considering which fresh fruit to pick for dessert at lunchtime. Or, when discussing at breakfast what we should eat later that day: “We already had chicken this week, so we shouldn't have that again.”

Thinking about Janine's example led me to write down the fifth French Food Rule:

French Food Rule #5:

Eat vegetables of all colors of the rainbow
.

Don't eat the same main dish more than once per week
.

This French habit of varied eating is pervasive. French parents will scrutinize the school menus at the start of every week—not only to see what their children are eating, but also so that they can avoid serving the same dish at home that week. (In Paris, my sister-in-law told me, the schools actually send home suggestions for evening meals.) When Philippe's parents visited us before we moved to France, I learned that they would expect a different dish at every meal (my record is three weeks of new dishes, which more than exhausted my repertoire). The only exception seemed to be breakfast, which was almost invariably the same: juice, coffee or tea (milk for the kids), white baguette, butter, and jam or honey. I had trouble reconciling the French approach to breakfast with the healthy approach to eating the rest of the day, but I had to admit that starting my morning with fresh baguette smeared with butter and honey did wonderful things for my mood.

Variety and trying new foods were probably the most difficult things for my kids to handle, I realized. And because of their resistance, I'd fallen into bad food habits. Before they were born, my diet had been much more diverse. When I had started university, my culinary skills were limited to reheating frozen dinners in the microwave, boiling eggs, and cooking pasta, but I soon branched out to salads and comfort foods like chili. But with the arrival of kids, our family eating habits had fallen back into a narrow rut, with little variety and almost no novelty.

After more than a week of research, I decided I had
enough information to create the next phase of The Plan. I wanted to create a set of personalized routines that would help us to improve our eating habits. They had to cover what, how, and when we ate. So I decided to include issues like scheduling, parental discipline, and variety.

In order to keep things organized, I decided to write everything up in a simple table. In the left-hand column, I would write down the new, specific rule that we would adopt. In the right-hand column, I'd write down what we had to change in order to be successful with the new rule.

I pasted The Plan on the fridge, next to the list of French Food Rules. Written down, it seemed more impressive. It also seemed more and more unlikely that this was actually going to work. How could I force my kids to start behaving like this? I'd have to have a strategy, I decided. This too got written up in markers and posted on the fridge:

I would start, I decided, with the first three routines together: no more snacks, no eating in the car or the stroller, and eating slowly. This would get us off to a good start. Plus, both the car and the stroller were full of crumbs and spills, so dirty they were embarrassing. I'd give them a thorough cleaning and then announce the news to the girls.

I anticipated that there would be lots of objections. So I also came up with some simple Smart Things to Say when my kids objected (as I knew they inevitably would).

I even got Philippe to help me translate “You get what you get, and you don't get upset!” into French. Primed with these Smart Things to Say, I thought about when to initiate The Plan. It would make sense to start on a Monday: new week, new beginning. Philippe would be out late at work, but I decided it might be better if I handled things myself.

So on Sunday evening, I carefully explained to the girls what was happening. I showed them the rules and routines taped on the fridge. Claire nodded solemnly and stuck her thumb into her mouth. Sophie stamped her foot in protest but then soon lost interest in the abstract discussion.

Still, I told myself, they knew what was coming. But, unfortunately, I didn't.

When I picked Sophie up from school on Monday afternoon, the first words out of her mouth (as on every school day) were: “I'm hungry!”

Already prepared, I quickly replied:

“Great! I've got a nice
goûter
waiting for you at home. We just have to pick up your sister at day care, run a few errands, and then head home.”

“But I'm
huuuuungry
!” wailed Sophie.

“I made homemade blueberry muffins. Your favorite! And look how clean the car is! I spent an hour and a half cleaning it today. You wouldn't believe all of the stuff I found. Look, here's that plastic fairy you thought you lost,” I carried on, hoping that Sophie would be distracted. Not a chance.

“I'm
really
hungry!” she whined.

I tried a different tactic. “French people don't eat in the car, and don't forget you're half French,” I said sternly.

“Then I should be able to eat in the car half the time!” snapped Sophie.

With that, I ran out of things to say. But I held firm. Sophie kept whining in protest as we drove to the day care, the grocery store, the dry cleaner, and the post office. Claire, equally used to eating when she got in the car, joined in the chorus.

Deafened and irritated, I drove straight past our last stop (the village bakery) and headed home. This added insult to injury. Claire's favorite treat was fresh baguette, which I'd normally buy for her every afternoon as we drove home from day care. She even had a preference for bread from one of the three bakeries in town (the bakers, fiercely proud of their recipes and methods, produced very distinctive baguettes). Normally, this treat was the highlight of her afternoon: lining up in the bakery, gravely handing over the money, and clutching the still-warm baguette in her hands. So when she saw the storefront go by, her face crumpled. Her whining had been tailing off, but now it returned and soon escalated into full-force crying.

By the time we got home, she was too overwrought to eat. Sophie gobbled down three muffins and two glasses of milk and left the table with a happy look. But Claire launched into a full-scale tantrum. I knew my daughter: if she got sufficiently hungry, she got too worked up to eat. Despairingly, I tried stuffing tiny pieces of blueberry muffin into her mouth, with no luck.

I felt a bit frantic. This was only the first day of The Plan. As a last resort, I rummaged in the cupboard, found an old baby bottle, heated up some milk, and poured it in. Success: her belly full, Claire calmed down (except for the occasional shuddering hiccup) and consented to sit on my lap while we read a story. After all of the fuss, I was feeling as if I could do with some warm milk myself.

Dinner was the next hurdle. I had prepared something I knew the girls liked for dessert:
mousse au chocolat
. But I had also prepared things I knew they would not be so happy about. At the market that morning I'd picked up some fresh fish (local sole), squash, and potatoes.

I congratulated myself on a smart move: serving the mashed potatoes first—and letting them make their “volcanoes,” which involved shaping the mashed potatoes into a conical mound, making a hole in top, and popping a dab of butter in, then sitting back and watching it melt. This was as satisfying as I knew it would be, and I even got Claire to take a few mouthfuls of potato (normally something she refused to eat).

But then the fish and the squash came out, and their defenses went up. Claire, still upset from her missed snack, burst into tears. Sophie put down her fork, folded her arms, and scowled. I picked up one fish-laden fork in each hand, determined that they wouldn't get the better of me on our first day.

But I had forgotten another obvious food rule (one that applies anywhere). It's no use forcing children to eat. If kids really don't want to eat, they will—at some point—simply clench their teeth. And they egged each other on. I now realized my mistake: they had probably had enough mashed potatoes that they didn't feel hungry any more. And Sophie's three blueberry muffins earlier on hadn't helped either.

Desperate, I thought of my secret weapon: dessert.

“If you don't eat this, you won't get dessert,” I said firmly. And I pulled the chocolate mousse out of the fridge, placing the bowl on the table in front of them.

Bad idea. Claire cried louder. And Sophie was furious.

“I want mousse!”

“If you don't eat your fish, you won't get any mousse!”

“I
hate
squash!” yelled Sophie, echoed by her little sister. “
Me too!
” wailed Claire.

“No complaining about food,” I snapped. “If you complain, you get a second serving!” And I plopped another spoonful of squash on Sophie's plate.

“Fine,” responded Sophie, after a few back-and-forth rounds. “I won't eat
anything
.” And, pushing back her chair, she left the table. Claire glanced at both of us with that wary, appraising look that second children often have (
Can I get away with that too?
), and quickly followed suit.

Fuming, I put the mousse away. I had forgotten Rule #2: Food is not a punishment, or a reward.

Somehow, I knew the evening was going to continue to go downhill. Gritting my teeth, I got them upstairs, and we started our bedtime routine: bath, pajamas, brushing teeth, tucking in, and story time. Telling stories was a precious ritual with the girls. In the first few weeks and months in France, when they'd been most unsettled by our move, I'd created an imaginary fairy friend for each of them. “A Fairy Story” had become so much a part of our routine that Sophie and Claire refused to go to sleep without one. Even babysitters had to be briefed on the story line that had to be strictly followed to avoid a bedtime mutiny.

Just as I was leaning over Sophie's bed to start the story, she abruptly spoke up.

“I'm hungry! I want a bedtime snack!”

Smiling smugly to myself, I replied with one of my Smart Things to Say.

“If you're hungry, it's because you should have eaten more at dinner. But don't worry, you'll have a great breakfast,” I said in a cheerful voice.

Sophie mustered up the worst insult that she was capable of: “You're not my friend anymore! You're
mean
.”

“Sophie,” I said gently, “I'm your mother, not your friend. Now, do you want your fairy story?”