The Cranky Parent: Maman, Bébé and Unsolicited Advice

Bringing up bébé has its dark side in the City of Light when maman can’t go wheeling through the supermarket without a stranger telling her that she hasn’t dressed her precious one properly for the yogurt aisle, as Melinda Mayor, aka Meshugeneh Mama, recounts with vitriol and humor.

by Melinda Mayor

Attention. Watch out. She’s coming this way.

There is a menacing air surrounding the shriveled-up old thing, but this isn’t immediately discernible due to the swaths of decayed fur and sagging support pantyhose. Swaying against her cane, she peers up from beneath her limp white coiffure and tsks at you. And then it comes:

“Oh la…”

Never have two words been more degrading. The disappointment positively drips from each syllable. She isn’t looking at you, however. She is staring down at your baby. The grand dame of the supermarket stage gasps.

“Il a froid!”

You are completely taken aback, especially if you’re American or Canadian and therefore caught with a smile on your face. Who is this creature with one foot in the grave to tell you that your baby is cold? But of course it is your fault, as it was you who decided to risk entering the local Monoprix in the company of a person less than two years of age. This is the price you pay not just for being a parent, but for daring to leave your Paris flat at all. Mon dieu!

Sadly, this scenario is not an infrequent one: Each day, countless English-speaking mothers face the same fate (the number of French mothers who experience this is unknown, because their babies are in nursery school). A little old lady limps along the yogurt aisle, seeking something soft to sink her brittle teeth into. She has the cough of a thousand lions roaring, only now the lions are old and decrepit, so it’s more of a death rattle. The throaty cough is phlegmy and weak after a steady diet of a pack of cigarettes a day followed by an evening glass of champagne. That was in her youth, when she was all high heels and expensive parfum. Now her shoes are orthopedic and the perfume is at least a double dose. She has even bypassed the stage of elegance, where French women of a certain age outdo their North American counterparts by an embarrassing degree. No sweatshirts bedazzled with fuzzy animals for them; these French grand-mères are civilized, pantsuited and lipsticked with soft silver hair that glints in the light of their favorite museums.

But this buzzard in beige is past all that. She and her cronies (what is the French word for “cronies,” you wonder) skulk in slow motion along the edges of grocery stores and pharmacies like the Grim Reaper himself, if Death needed a walker. Their bloodshot eyes are constantly peeled for babies, poor innocent defenseless bébés with monsters for mothers, monsters who dress their children in nothing but the most threadbare t-shirt and shorts over a diaper when the weather is murderously hot. Bundle that child up, madame! It is only 30° in the shade! The poor thing will freeze to death beneath all that sun cream! Oh la, indeed…

It never fails. From the posh confines of the 16th to the village-like streets of the 18th, the ancient ones descend, on the lookout for new mothers whose nerves are already at the breaking point. It took all day just to leave the house, and all maman can think about is the possibility of her precious angel’s diaper exploding in a catastrophe of epic proportions (and smells). She is a wreck, feeling out of sorts on these Parisian streets, looking nothing like the chic and manicured woman she aimed to be B.C. (Before Children). She wants so badly to fit into her pre-pregnancy clothes like all the French mothers seem to do so effortlessly. For now, she will consider it a success if she can just get to Monoprix, just get outside and walk among the living for a while. That’s all.

Even if your French is limited, you can fight off one of these wizened harpies with a deceptively calm tone. “Il est content, madame” can be enough to briefly wound her, especially if said in a condescending tone. When the old bat insists that your baby needs socks, a hat, a snowsuit in July, try a sickeningly sweet, “Merci beaucoup, madame, mais il fait beau aujourd’hui.” If she hasn’t hobbled off yet, feel free to throw the niceties out the window and tell her off in English or Urdu or whatever the hell language you damn well please. Your confidence is shaken enough on a daily basis without this elderly Wicked Witch of l’Ouest messing with you. Let her have it. Then make your way back to your Paris apartment, still a charming abode no matter how many pieces of clothing covered in bodily fluids are lying about. It won’t always be this way. Your baby will grow into this life and so will you, and these blurry days will be nothing but a distant memory.

And all that will be left of that old crank is her cane.

© 2013 Melinda Mayor

Melinda Mayor is a writer-performer whose works include her one-woman show, “Jew! (A Musical),” various monologues and Meshugeneh Mama, her regular column for Message magazine. For more of her work see www.MelindaMayor.com.

Also see The Cranky Host, The Cranky Urbanist, The Cranky Foreign Resident and The Cranky Pedestrian.