Discrimination was a problem before terrorism. Now, the bad deeds of a few people have made life worse for millions.
I've got letters from all over the world saying what you're describing as American parenting is Chilean middle-class parenting, or it is Finnish middle-class parenting, or it is Slovak middle-class parenting.
I think kids in France, and certainly in my household, don't necessarily stop interrupting when you tell them, but they gradually become more aware of other people, and that means that you can have the expectation of finishing a conversation.
We're understandably worried that staring at screens all day, and blogging about our breakfasts, is turning America into a nation of narcissists. But the opposite might be true.
How hard or easy it is to raise kids, especially while working, is a big part of people's well-being everywhere.
It's refreshing to have some time off from wondering whether I look fat.
Like practically everyone who grew up in Miami, I knew little about its history. We were more worried about mangoes falling on our cars.
Your child probably won't get into the Ivy League or win a sports scholarship. At age 24, he might be back in his childhood bedroom, in debt, after a mediocre college career. Raise him so that, if that happens, it will still have been worth it.
You know you're in your 40s when you've spent 48 hours trying to think of a word, and that word was 'hemorrhoids.'
Discrimination was a problem before terrorism. Now, the bad deeds of a few people have made life worse for millions.
I've been vacationing in western North Carolina and northern Georgia since I was a kid. I arrive, marvel at the mountains, and put on an unconvincing Southern drawl.
What you can say, what French parents say to their kids is, 'You don't have to eat everything, honey, you just have to taste it.' And it's that tasting little by little by little that gets kids more familiar with the food and more comfortable with it and more likely to eat it the next time.
Even for natives, French satire is rarely laugh-out-loud funny. Its unspoken punch line is typically that things have gone irrevocably wrong, and the government is to blame.
Where Americans might coo over a child's most inane remark to boost his confidence, middle-class French parents teach their kids to be concise and amusing, to keep everyone listening.
And as a mother of three with a full-time job, podcasts gave me the illusion of having a vibrant social life. I was constantly 'meeting' new people. My favorite hosts started to seem like friends: I could detect small shifts in their moods and tell when they were flirting with guests.
One of the maddening things about being a foreigner in France is that hardly anyone in the rest of the world knows what's really happening here. They think Paris is a socialist museum where people are exceptionally good at eating small bits of chocolate and tying scarves.
I spend much of my free time listening to podcasts of American comedians talking to each other.
Parisians won't admit that they go to the gym, let alone that they're scared of terrorists.
It's fine to discuss money in France, as long as you're complaining that you don't have enough, or boasting about getting a bargain.
When I moved to Europe 12 years ago, my biggest concern was whether I'd ever speak decent French. Practically every American I knew came to visit, many saying they dreamed of living here, too.