“Does it taste like a strawberry lollipop from a supermarket, or more like mom’s perfume?” Christine Bertoli, the wine expert at the Languedoc resort Château Capitoul, asks my seven-year-old son as he gingerly holds a white wine glass by the stem and swallows its dark pink contents.
Fortunately, the hearty splash on offer today is 0 percent ABV, a lively cabernet grape juice that didn’t make it into the enormous wine fermentation vats in the adjacent cellar. “Allowing children to taste the flavors of wine is all part of the French philosophy of treating children as small adults”, explains Bertoli.
It has been twelve years since the publication of French children don’t throw food, a bestseller that celebrates the tricks and philosophies of French parenting through the eyes of an outsider. The book, written by the American journalist Pamela Druckerman, introduced us to a rarefied one mouth in which babies sleep through the night, children sit long, quiet hours at bistro tables and eat whatever is put in front of them, and new mothers are “more likely to be seen in skinny jeans than sweatpants”.
It also introduced nasty Anglo-Saxons with terms like goûter (a small snack that French children eat around 4 p.m., often a reserved sweet treat) and French shibboleths such as the rééducation perineale (state-funded therapies to get women’s pelvic floors back in shape).
It doesn’t take long for holidaymakers to realize the key differences between French and British parenting cultures. Guilty Brits might notice, for example, that fewer small children are being looked after by iPads in public spaces, and that French children are setting themselves out to tackle black runs at ski resorts unaccompanied. Compare Château Capitoul’s wine tasting initiative with reports from January that there was a pub in London refused to serve apple juice to a five-year-old girl in a champagne flute to toast the New Year with her parents, in case it would ‘encourage’ the toddler to drink booze.
Château Capitoul sits on a vineyard-lined hilltop overlooking the scoured lagoons of La Clape. It is one of four vineyard hotels in Domaine & Demeure’s Languedoc stable. The villa location, a collaboration between the French wine-producing Bonfils family and Irish hoteliers Karl O’Hanlon and Anita Forte, has the usual luxury trappings of the 1920s: fine dining, an infinity pool with 180-degree views over vast vineyards and an elegant full-size swimming pool . spa service. Things are also going fast for everything that has to do with viticulture.
Wine offerings include the on-site cave, where daily tastings with Bertoli take place; a soon-to-launch immersive wine cellar tour; and initiatives to introduce children to the sacred products of the vine. In addition to tandem wine and wine juice tastings for parents and children, this also includes a summer camp where children learn the winemaking process and play among the estate’s vineyards. “Why should the great pleasures of life be only for adults?” asks Bertoli. “For the French, parents and children do not live in separate worlds.”
In 2022, Dr. Jo Mueller, a British clinical psychologist who specializes in parenting, sat in the summer sun outside a restaurant on Lake Annecy, in southeastern France. Mueller and her husband Adam had ordered an appetizer of foie gras from the Dordogne and were amazed that her son and daughter, then aged four and two, were offered their own small portions.
“I think I told the kids it was some kind of ham,” laughs Mueller. Having lived for a while between France and Britain, Mueller says the stereotypes about French parenthood are true. “French children do not have their own special foods and are expected to eat adult food at the table because they are seen less as independent people and more as part of the family,” she says. Meanwhile, Mueller adds, there is little talk of “helicopter” parenting or parenting fads in France.
“There is one way of doing things and that is the traditional French way.” Mueller also believes that the vous And tu The structure of the French language, where children typically address older people with the polite ‘vous’, inspires an intergenerational respect that is lacking in Britain.
As any Brit who has had to whip up an appetizer for hungry children knows, French children eat later (usually around 8pm with their parents) and go to bed around 9pm (an hour later than the average British youngster). At Château Capitoul, in true British style, our family of three sat down for dinner at 7pm, while French families only arrived with their babies in their arms as we left.
Guillaume Marly, the French joint director of London’s five-star Café Royal hotel and Hotel Lutetia in Paris, said French hoteliers must adapt to this difference if they want to serve British guests: “In Britain, children tend to eat earlier, around 5 p.m., and although the diets are more similar than you might think, children in France eat more fresh, raw vegetables and of course cheese.” Most ultra-luxury hotels offer the option of early dining, but something Marly says is also requested by American tourists.
“There is no concept in France that children’s bedtime means adult time can begin,” Mueller says of French night owls. “On the other hand, it is very normal for parents of babies to ask a babysitter to go to a restaurant for adults.”
Although (fancy) chicken nuggets have made their way into the French capital in recent years, the designated children’s menus are so meager that the Paris Office de Tourisme is making a mark of the handful of restaurants that offer everything for little diners besides the obligatory steak haché (the French bunless beef burger). This includes brasserie Bofinger, which offers variations on the famous fruits de mer dishes, without more challenging additions such as whelks and langoustines.
A guide for French tourism professionals, written by Brittany’s Regional Development Authority, does a fantastic job of weighing in on the peccadilloes of the British family tourist. ‘Les Britanniques’, it says: ‘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 prefer less formality and are very sensitive to safety messages – ‘watch your step’, ‘watch your head’ – and are quick to claim compensation in the event of injury.”
Is this idea of two nations divided by different parenting methods convincing 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 routinely see Parisian parents plugging in their devices in restaurants, barely aware of the steak tartare arriving at their doorstep. So at least the jury is out on the issue of better parenting in France.
Back at the Château Capitoul wine tasting, how am I doing? small adult to work? Unlike his mother, Leo is clearly not a merlot guy. “It tastes like my sports socks,” he concludes simply. “Très bien!” Bertoli is beaming.
Sally Howard was a guest at Château Capitoul, where a two-bedroom villa with garden (sleeps four) costs from £400 per night (chateaucapitoul.com; 0345 686 6506)