Lost in translation
Over the weekend I was watching an episode of House Hunters International where a family was moving from the Midwest to Paris. While touring the second floor of a house in the Paris suburbs, the mother pointed out to the realtor that there were no screens or any safety devices on the windows, how was she supposed to keep her two-year-old from jumping to his death? And the realtor answered in English with a deep accent, "Vell, you tell heem not to jump out zee vindow, and he will not jump out zee vindow."
You guys, why did she not think of that?
I sat there and rewound that segment about seventeen times, pausing each time on the realtor's face when that mother asked that question, his eyebrows raised to his hairline. I don't know if there is a French word for DUH? but his face said it.
(maybe, le DUH?)
Perhaps two-year-old French boys would hear, "Do not jump out the window." But I'm guessing that those boys have been drugged.
Most would hear, "Outside this window is the most amazing toy ever invented. No other child on earth has one. In order to get it you must jump as far off of this ledge as possible. But you have to do it when no one is looking or the toy will go away. Also, the toy will be even bigger if you make a huge fuss over dinner and then kick your mother while she tries to pull your pajamas over your head. One last thing: your big sister is going to find out about this toy in less than 24 hours, so you should probably set her bed on fire while she's sleeping."
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FM Living
labradoris said:
*grin*
11.08.10 - 02:42 PM / 1artmeetslife said:
Those French, with their philosophy, their cafes and their art...what is the window anyway?
11.08.10 - 02:43 PM / 2signot said:
Maybe french children are well behaved and listen to their parents! I wonder if moving there would somehow force my kids into a french kid mindset...
11.08.10 - 02:57 PM / 3Becky Cochrane said:
THAT'S why I didn't have kids. They wouldn't have been French.
11.08.10 - 03:07 PM / 4AlliBally said:
How about the fact that you will have flies and every other bug you don't want in your apartment. I desperately miss screens so much.
11.08.10 - 03:21 PM / 5emah said:
Also, here is a news story about a French 18-month-old FALLING OUT OF AN EIGHTH STORY WINDOW (happy ending).
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/02/world/ma...
So apparently they don't always listen.
11.08.10 - 03:24 PM / 6Bobbi French said:
I have just run away to France and I can verify that there is not a screen to be found. Anywhere. I can also tell you that it is not raining children so they must have a way of keeping them from leaping to their deaths. I'll ask every mother I see tomorrow and get back to ya...
Bobbi
11.08.10 - 03:30 PM / 7Alexa said:
There is something called childproofing.
The thing that struck me about the woman - she was so intrigued by the second place - she was fascinated because it was modern and probably so unlike her experience. I felt as if she was asking for something new before she returned to the Midwest and what she perceived as her more normal, conforming life. I saw that in her face, anyway.
11.08.10 - 03:45 PM / 8Eventually said:
I remember seeing that episode and thinking the same. As someone who grew up in Europe I am always surprised how little safety is (was?) put up around the house there and how much we put up here in the States. I have no idea how I didn't electrocute myself, fall out of the window, crack my head, or drown in the toilet as a kid.
11.08.10 - 03:54 PM / 9WashingtonMama said:
this is what they do in Paris:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11689585
11.08.10 - 04:05 PM / 10cherylsmith75 said:
That's what we told our kids when we moved into a 9th floor apartment in Japan. It worked. I won't pretend that I wasn't nervous, but I'm happy to say that neither of them ever tried to jump.
11.08.10 - 04:13 PM / 11AlexandraDare said:
Ahahaha one of my best friends is French. I love myself some French people. But they do very often look at us Americans like we are the craziest psycho people on Earth. I went to France for a month this last summer, and I was like, what are we, in the DARK AGES? WHERE IS THE AIR CONDITIONING? And my Parisian friend turned to tell her other Parisian friend, "In America, you have to wear a sweater in the summer to go to the GROCERY STORE." And I thought to myself... Hmm. I guess that is a little ridiculous, isn't it?
I guess the French figure their kids are not going to jump out the window. And if they do, then probably the world is better off without them. Survival of the fittest, they might say. LOL, but that's the French for ya.
11.08.10 - 05:11 PM / 13Spambot said:
Shouldn't have stopped calling them freedom fries.
French bastards.
11.08.10 - 05:33 PM / 14kranky said:
that's what's always been striking to me about articles i've read on european parenting. they don't seem to have to childproof. there was an article in parents magazine about this last summer. all it did was make me feel like a bad mom. i'm sorry, but my kid would be dead by now if we lived in europe and i don't think i'm the one to blame for that.
11.08.10 - 05:36 PM / 15sherina said:
You know, we have a book that I had as a kid and it's all about different kinds of homes. One shows a little boy of maybe two years of age SITTING IN THE WINDOWSILL of an apartment at the top of a skyscraper and he's feeding pigeons because the window is open and there is NO SCREEN NOR ARE THERE BARS.
When I was a kid it never crossed my mind. As a parent I wanted to set the book on fire before my kids - here on the 4th floor - got any wild ideas.
11.08.10 - 05:48 PM / 16mrs_k said:
Must be a French thing. When we lived in Germany, they had bars on the windows of our 3rd floor apartment for that very reason. And screens. Except our cat managed to ninja his way through both, and I awoke one morning to see him chilling on a tiny windowsill three stories above the earth.
11.08.10 - 06:01 PM / 17kimba said:
i JUST found this show yesterday and i've already set the dvr for both versions of it! love love love! i can get my fix of home buying while i sit in my RIDICULOUS rental in the bay area.
also, is THAT how it works?! you just tell them and they do it? that's too bad, because i'm pretty sure my toddler doesn't speak Rational.
11.08.10 - 06:03 PM / 18tokenblogger said:
Some of us still hear and believe...
11.08.10 - 06:04 PM / 19jg said:
I think that man has not spent much time around little boys. Well, not little boys like my chimney-climbing, catflap squeezing-through, oven-door surfing, ironing the dog, hosing the living room, syruping the walls, crazy wee maniac of a son!
11.08.10 - 06:45 PM / 20bditty said:
I am a complete house hunters international addict. I love to see how folks in other countries live. And I do think we are a completely neurotic bunch of folks here in America. Perhaps there is something to be said for 'fear-mongering' parenthood...especially since I live in constant fear of everything...sharp corners, hard floors, paper cuts, pedophiles...
I was just thinking of you today as I sat with my nearly 2 year old in the dentist's chair as he polished down her chipped tooth. Such fun!
11.08.10 - 06:49 PM / 21donna boucher said:
Funny. I saw the exact same House Hunters Int.....
and I thought the Americans were the morons.
Live in the heart of the city people...you went to France for the Paris experience!
I loved that French dude. I was dying to say the same thing to them.
ah well....
11.08.10 - 07:27 PM / 22Momsword said:
I was watching last night and was struck by the couple buying a house in Morocco. What got me was they kept saying they wanted an old house but they kept saying how it just wasn't thier style. Then they ended up building a very American house on an olive farm. Why move to a different country if you are going to complain about how things are different from America.
11.08.10 - 07:42 PM / 23freckleface said:
Ok.. this reminds me of a story that I'm sure will shock and horrify and amaze you as much as it did me.
My best friend (guy) lives with friends in an apartment on the third floor of their building. Their complex moved in a 4th roommate who was pretty sketchy. One day the sketchy guy had a girl over, who had her 8-12 month baby with her. They were in his room with the door closed, doing their thing.
So my friend is in his own room with his door closed when he hears a knock at his door. He opens it and sees sketchy guy, looking a little nervous, saying "hey.. I need you to drive me to the hospital." Naturally my friend asks why, and he says "because my friend's baby was sitting on my bed, and then all of a sudden he just CRAWLED OUT OF OUR WINDOW AND FELL THREE STORIES TO THE GROUND BELOW" (note: he said all of this very calmly; the screaming caps are just my reaction of horror). So he drives them to the hospital, baby is fine and not even crying... checks out ok and nothing is wrong at all. How weird is that? And who lets a baby crawl around in front of an open window anyways??
11.08.10 - 07:53 PM / 24BellyGirl said:
IMHO, European children behave so differently from American kids. Rarely on my travels in Europe did I see kids being constantly corralled by their parents and told, "No...don't...get over here...stop that". The European kids seemed more in control of themselves and more likely to play independently without the constant need for their parents' attention.
11.08.10 - 07:55 PM / 25peppylady said:
I bet the realtor don't have any children.
Coffee is on.
http://peppylady.blogspot.com/
11.08.10 - 08:03 PM / 26melissat11 said:
I saw that same episode a few months ago.. I thought it was funny. I guess they don't have any goverment agency for that...
11.08.10 - 09:23 PM / 27noellef79 said:
I agree with the French on this one. We grew up with no childproofing, bike helmets, blah, blah, blah. All those kids who had such restrictions: I teach them now, and they don't even know how to get themselves a tissue.
11.08.10 - 10:20 PM / 28WVKay said:
Ze French. Fuck them.
11.08.10 - 10:59 PM / 29Juliasarmoire said:
Just saying ;) The Paris babies fly too, out of window.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101102/wl_nm/us_franc...
11.08.10 - 11:57 PM / 30Juliasarmoire said:
Oops, I was not the only one posting the link, but what's interesting... how many babies actually felt out of window? Some articles say the baby was a boy, the others say it was a girl... in one of them, the baby was together with 3 years old sister... in other articles it's 4 years old brother. Duh. Go figure.
11.09.10 - 12:00 AM / 31