Temporary versus Permanent

Our friend Sally has been living in France for longer than she lived in the U.S. One thing I kept an eye out for during our visit was how differently you live your life if you're in a foreign country permanently instead of only temporarily.

Sally's children attend French school and once you find out more about the French school system, you realize how big a deal that really is. For example, children still come home midday for lunch. When I said to Sally, "I gotta tell you, Sally, that would drive me crazy. You must be home at lunchtime. What if you need to go in to Paris for something or want to meet friends for lunch?" She answered that schools now have cafeterias, so you have a choice (important since so many more moms work in France than here in Germany.) But her kids usually come home for the 90-120 minute lunch break. That makes for a longer school day, with the kids finishing classes at around 4:30. Most German kids go home for lunch and that's the end of the school day. That would also drive me crazy.

And even more importantly, French school children now have a proper weekend. Until this year, there was no school on Wednesdays and older kids had school Saturday mornings. Wednesdays were a day of sport and recreation. Sally's kids now have school on Wednesdays, but, and I'm lowering my voice here to a whisper, many school districts throughout France are operating on a 4-day school week, retaining the Wednesday day off. We'll just keep that little tidbit to ourselves, OK?

It also means that French, even with an American mom at home who speaks plenty of English to them, is the kids' first language. They all speak English, with varying degrees of fluency and accents, but all seemed much more comfortable with French.

It was never a questions of what type of school we would put our children in during our 3 years in Germany. We knew Lufthansa would cover the cost of the English-language international school and we knew the kids would not need to repeat a grade because an entire year was lost to learning German. But we also knew that it meant our kids would not learn German quickly, nor even very fluently. Since we're here only temporarily, however, we accepted that. Had we moved here for an indefinite amount of time, we would have considered putting them into German school.

I couldn't help but notice day-to-day things, such as the fact that Sally's home, like the majority of French households, does not having a clothes dryer. Clothes are dried outside on a clothesline or inside on a large drying rack. You can buy dryers now, but they're still not very common.

To my surprise, Sally drives an automatic car. She commented, "Well, I passed my driver's exam with a manual, so that I could drive either. But the next day, I informed my husband that my new car would be an automatic."

She also chooses to do her grocery shopping at her huge, beautiful supermarket, over going to specialty shops, the traditional French way. And she is refreshingly unapologetic about it. But, the family does seem to eat very French meals (no cereal for breakfast, for example).

It sounds like the family does get to visit the U.S. every year, so the kids have a bond with the American side of the family.

And there's the whole language thing. Sally was fluent in French before she moved to France, which helped with the transition of moving to a foreign country. I'm experiencing how the "it's all temporary" state of mind is playing a part in my learning German. I've taken a break from language classes for the moment, but am seeing my drive to get moving on it again dwindling. We're already halfway through our stay here, I have enough German to go about my day, but not as much as I had planned on and hoped for. Considering that we're moving back to the U.S. in just a little over a year, is it worth the effort? My guess is, I'll compromise and sign up for more classes, just not the intensive 4 hours a day, 4 days a week kind.

Overall Sally has struck an good balance within her family. But I was still surprised at her response when I asked her, "So, now that you've lived here this long, do you think you could ever live happily back in the U.S.?" I thought she would swear up and down, "Are you kidding? Life here is fantastic!" In reality, she responded, "Of course! I'd be fine. Not so sure about everyone else, though."