La folie continue...

It occurred to me that I haven’t written about the latest craziness chez Rigaud in a while. Well, dear readers, let me tell you that a lot has gone on and none of it is what one might call “normal”. Firstly, Mme has three sons: Tim, Antoine, and Julian. Tim is the 20-year-old who lives with us, Antoine seems fairly normal, and Julian is the oldest, with two twin 7-year-old boys. Now, I don’t know all the details, but from what I can discern from conversation is that Julian has recently been through a divorce, is completely irresponsible, and has little to no respect for my host mother. He lived with us for about a week, barely spoke, smoked a lot of cigarettes, and went through several bottles of wine. Remember those 7-year-old twin boys? Well, they stay with us about once a week. The only problem is that Julian just drops them off at the apartment without warning, leaving whoever is around to argue about who will stay home and watch them.
One of the most recent debacles was about Grand Theft Auto. Yes, the extremely violent video game that apparently has been translated into French. Well, it turns out that the twin boys’ great-grandfather, my host-grandfather who is fairly old and crazy, offered to buy them a video game. So Tim, my host brother who smokes pot in his room and is supposedly going to find a job working with local French hip-hop groups, offers to go with them to the store and buy them a video game. Tim, in his infinite wisdom, buys them Grand Theft Auto. Of course what he didn’t realize was that 7-year-old boys can’t keep their mouths shut. So fast-forward to dinner with two twin boys, two awkward Americans, two angst-ridden teen girls, and a super-Catholic host mother and somehow the boys mention that they got a video game for ages 16 and over. And then Tim walks in… and all chaos breaks loose. Mme promptly announces she’s the only responsible one in the family (vaguely true) and that she’s going to return the video game to the store. The kitchen goes mad. Tim says Mme shouldn’t return it, that the game is harmless. Charlotte says that they’re seven and it’s ridiculous that he even bought it in the first place. The boys say their dad is fine with the purchase and finally Mme yells, “Because your dad is crazy! He is not responsible at all!” Eventually, Rachael and I sneak out of the kitchen dying of laughter. Just another night chez Rigaud.
It got me to thinking, though, about the French ways to discipline children. From what I have seen over the past few months, my situation is not unique. I mean, it’s probably crazier than most, but many people yell here. That was one of the biggest adjustments, I think, was just the amount of yelling you here walking around. Mothers will literally yell at their children on the street if they accidentally fall down or take a few steps in the wrong direction. Now, I am not a mother, nor am I a rocket scientist, but I am observant. I can tell when something is completely ineffective. When it’s so frequent, yelling seems to have little to no positive effect. It rarely stops someone from doing something, instead it just makes them either want to rebel some more or fosters a grudge towards the parents. In my mind, this explains a lot of French behavior in general, but that’s probably a stretch.
Enough rambling about that, I suppose. Time to go to bed in order to wake up early for my 8:30 a.m. oral exam tomorrow. I can’t wait. Bonne nuit.