“Does it taste like a strawberry lollipop from the supermarket, or more like your mother’s perfume?” Christine Bertoli, oenologist at the Languedoc resort town of Château Capitoul, asks my seven-year-old son, who carefully holds a white wine glass by the stem and sips the dark pink contents.
Fortunately, the live liquor on offer today is 0 percent ABV, a lively cabernet grape juice that didn’t make it to the large wine fermentation barrels in the neighboring cellar. “Expressing children to taste wine is part of the French philosophy of treating children as individuals. little adultsBertoli explains:
12 years have passed since its publication French Children Don’t Throw FoodA bestselling book that explains the tricks and philosophies of French parenting from an outsider’s perspective. The book, written by American journalist Pamela Druckerman, introduced us to a rare subject. monde A time when babies slept through the night, children sat at bistro tables for long, peaceful hours eating whatever was put in front of them, and new mothers were “more likely to be seen in skinny jeans than sweatpants.”
It also introduced to scattered Anglo-Saxons terms such as: gûter (a small snack, usually a sweet treat, that French children eat around 4 p.m.) and French passwords re-education perineale (government-funded treatments to return women’s pelvic floors to their original shape).
It doesn’t take long for holidaymakers to realize the key differences between French and British parenting cultures. Guilty Britons might note, for example, that fewer young children are being babysat with iPads in public spaces, and that French children are taking up unaccompanied black runs in ski resorts. Compare Château Capitoul’s wine tasting initiative with reports of a bar in London in January. Refused to offer apple juice to five-year-old girl in champagne glass Toasting with his family in case he “encourages” the new year to drink.
Perched on a hill surrounded by vineyards overlooking the sandy lagoons of La Clape, Château Capitoul is one of four vineyard hotels in Domaine & Demeure’s Languedoc stable. A collaboration between the French winemaking Bonfils family and Irish hoteliers Karl O’Hanlon and Anita Forte, the villa estate has the usual 2020s luxury trappings: fine dining, an infinity pool with 180-degree views of the expansive vineyards, and an elegant, fully equipped terrace . service spa. There are difficulties in everything related to viticulture.
Wine offerings include the on-site cave that hosts daily tastings with Bertoli; an immersive wine cellar tour starting soon; and initiatives to introduce children to the sacred fruits of the vine. These include tandem wine and wine juice tastings for parents and kids, as well as a summer camp where kids learn the winemaking process and play among the resort’s vines. “Why should life’s great pleasures be reserved for adults only?” Bertoli asks. “For the French, parents and children do not live in separate worlds.”
In 2022, British clinical psychologist Dr. Jo Mueller was sitting in the summer sun outside a restaurant on the shores of Lake Annecy in southeastern France. Mueller and her husband, Adam, served Dordogne foie gras and were stunned to be presented with their own tiny portions to her son and daughter, then aged four and two.
“I think I told the kids it was some kind of ham,” Mueller said. Mueller, who lived between France and England for a time, says the stereotypes about French parenting are true. “French children do not have their own special food and are expected to sit at the table and eat adult food because they are seen less as independent people and more as part of the family,” she says. Meanwhile, Mueller adds, there is little in the way of “helicopter” parenting or parenting fads in France.
“There is one way of doing things, the traditional French way.” Mueller also believes: you And you The structure of the French language, with children often addressing adults with the polite ‘vous’, instills an intergenerational respect that does not exist in the UK.
As any Brit who has had to prepare dinner for hungry children from snacks will know, French children eat later (usually with their parents around 8pm) and go to bed around 9pm (an hour later than the average British teenager). At Château Capitoul, our family of three sat down to dinner at 7pm, in true English style; French families were just starting to arrive with their babies when we stayed.
Guillaume Marly, French joint MD of the five-star Hotel Café Royal in London and Hotel Lutetia in Paris, said French hoteliers must adapt to this difference if they want to serve UK guests: “In the UK, children eat earlier, “It’s around 5pm and although diets in France are more similar than you’d think, kids are eating more fresh, raw vegetables and, of course, cheese.” Most ultra-luxury hotels will cater to early diners, but it’s something Marly said is also requested by American tourists.
“In France, there is zero concept that children’s bedtime means that adult time can begin,” Mueller says of night owl French children. “On the other hand, it is very normal for parents of babies to hire a babysitter to go to a restaurant for adults.”
While (luxury) chicken nuggets have flooded the French capital in recent years, designated children’s menus are so slim that the Paris Office de Tourisme is among a handful of restaurants offering anything beyond the obligatory steak haché for little ones. (Beef burger without French bun). These include brasserie Bofinger, which offers different takes on its famous fruit platter, free of more challenging additions such as snails and crayfish.
A guide for French tourism professionals written by the Brittany regional development authority weighs in – incredibly – on the quirks of British family tourists. “Les Britanniques” writes: “They are used to museums that are open all day from 9 to 5 and have an on-site lunch area as well as soft play areas for children. They like less formality and are very sensitive to safety messages – ‘watch your step.’ , ‘mind your mind’ – and are quick to claim compensation in case of injury.”
Is this concept of two nations divided by different parenting methods compelling to this parent-traveler? Yes and no. On the one hand, the extended family group at the table is an indisputable feature of French life; On the other hand, these days I see Parisian parents glued to their devices in restaurants barely noticing the steak tartare reaching their elbows. So, at least in France, the jury is out on better parenting.
How am I doing at the Château Capitoul wine juice tasting? small adult Are you starting? unlike him momLeo is clearly not a Merlot guy. “They taste like my gym socks,” he simply finishes. “Très bien!” Bertoli beams.
Sally Howard was a guest at Château Capitoul; A two-bedroom villa (sleeps four) with a garden here starts from £400 per night (chateaucapitoul.com; 0345 686 6506)