As a new mother in Necker's maternity ward, I just assumed that my roommates (I was there long enough to have two) both happened to have severe emotional disorders--or hearing problems. What kind of person would just sit there chewing on tepid
pintade while her newborn screamed? But my roommates were not the odd balls out in French motherhood. Apparently the French still believe that you can spoil a baby. Give into her
caprices now (i.e.: pick her up), and you'll spend the next eighteen years with an obnoxious, whiny, manipulative
monstre.
My Parisian gynecologist summed it up when she saw me flinching on the examination table as my two-month-old hollered in his stroller, just out of my reach. "Does that really bother you?" she asked as she continued the post-natal exam. I realized she was talking about my son's cries.
Yes, I'm afraid it does. Sucks to be human.
Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable as Scarlett and Rhett Butler. [Online image] 1939.
