How Embarrassing!!

'Dad you're so embarrassing'!  'Mom please don't embarrass me'. Bewildered Nancy and I look at each other wondering if perhaps we've grown a second head or a new appendage since arriving in France. We realize that few 9 and 11 year olds view their parents as hip or cool but until recently we couldn't figure out why we were so embarrassing. Ok maybe we aren't the most fashion forward parents with the latest clothes but we know who Lady Gaga and Rianna are. We've tried giving the kids some space by sending them on errands such as buying a loaf of bread unaccompanied or allowing Simona to walk home by herself from school which is about a 20 minute walk. And yet on countless occasions we are scolded for how embarrassing we are. 

Back in the fall Simona along with another girl from her school represented the grade 6s at two cross-country meets. She was adamant that we not show up to cheer her on. In the mornings when we walk her to school (it's dark when we leave the house) she insists we let her walk the last leg on her own lest her friends spot her with us.  Similarly Madeleine was downright irritated when Nancy showed up at the school to ask her teacher about some french grammar lesson she was struggling with. This past week she was reduced to tears when Nancy along with another mother volunteered to accompany the class on an outing to a local gallery. Totally baffled at the reaction we reminded Madeleine how disappointed she was back home when mom wasn't able to participate in many class outings because she often had to work. As it turned out Nancy was on her best behaviour and received a passing grade for not being 'too' embarrassing. 

So what's the cause of all the embarrassment and torture we have inflicted on our 'poor' kids you ask? The way we speak French!! Or as the kids suggest our inability to speak proper French. I must confess there have been more than a few incidents which have justifiably given cause for embarrassment. Take for example last week.   We were having dinner when the phone rings. After a few "pardon, excusez moi, repetez plus lentement si vous plait", I finally make out it's a dad of one of Simona's friends inviting us to dinner on Saturday night.  What should have been a 3 or 4 minute discussion turns into a much longer 'discussion' as I struggle through obligatory pleasantries such as what can we bring and take down the address of where they live etc. I could see Simona, Maddy and to a lesser extent Nancy's faces cringe at my verb conjugation and sentence structure and as our discussion is about to end, instead of au revoir, I blurt out 'ola' just like Dora the Explorer. I could feel the exasperation in the air as I hung up the phone and the girls simultaneously howled hysterically and berated me for how embarrassing I was.  It was indeed embarrassingly hilarious I agreed.  

So after months of living in France and speaking 'french' daily to apartment rental agents, landlords, bank tellers, countless merchants, registering the girls for school, taking the kids to doctors and dealing with the hospital when Simona broke her arm, buying a car and getting insurance, filling out all sorts of forms and the list goes on and on and on, our lovely little darlings can only remind us of how embarrassing we are for not being able to speak French!!  And yet as much as we'd like to wring their little necks at times, we can't help but chuckle at the irony of it. After all it wasn't so long ago that Nancy and I felt equally embarrassed by our immigrant parents who struggled speaking English in Canada. 
Sal