I'm Moving to France

After reading the first few chapters of Perfect Madness I have reached a solid conclusion: I’m moving to France when I am ready to have kids. It seems much more do-able and definitely less intense.

Like Megan mentioned in her post, I too, began to picture myself in motherhood situations and ask myself questions about my own decisions to become a mother. Am I paying over 50,000 dollars a year for an education only to become a stay-at-home in a few years with a potential part-time job? Yes, we do have choices and freedom as American citizens. However, Warner points out our choices (as mothers) are on the order of: “You can continue to pursue your dreams at the cost of abandoning your children to long hours of inadequate childcare” (52). Pursuing a career and raising a successful family simultaneously seem impossible. How do you do it?

France seems to have a much more agreeable solution to the angst of motherhood. I think what bothered me most in this book so far was not the text itself, but the fact that America, with all our freedom and endless opportunities, cannot figure out how to cope with mother anxiety. Why not try to adapt the France lifestyle for motherhood? Why can’t we make that solution work in America? Is it because American mothers are too stuck on the concept of perfectionism? Warner suggests that mothers have the mentality that claims “...Donna Reed-inspired perfection in everything we do for our children” (41). Maybe we should stop viewing American television from the 1950s in terms of motherhood and focus on present-day French television shows. It irritates me, that this country, does not have a better solution to the problem mothers face today.

Although the fears and anxiety that the first texts of this class presented in terms of motherhood have now returned for me after reading the beginning of Perfect Madness, I thought the actual text did a great job of illuminating this mother anxiety. Key phrases and sentences really captured “the mess.” For example, the following sentence: “Parents prostitute their souls for spots in private schools” (33) really highlighted the intensity parents showed for their child’s education. Warner also utilized great examples to drive these first few chapters. For example, she explains how the working mother stayed up until 2am to pound mince pies she had bought to look homemade for a school bake sale.


After examining the text and examples in more depth, I no longer thought about my own situation as a potential future mother, but that of my own mother. My mother is a stay-at-home mom. She has been since I was born. At first the whole image of the mother making mince pies look homemade seemed absurd, but then I recounted what my own mother has done for me. She has stayed up late helping me cut out and glue for school projects, she has offered to chaperone school dances and field trips, and she has baked for school bake sales as well. Is my mother experiencing this horrible “mess” too? Maybe it’s time we learn some lessons from the French. Or else maybe I shall just suggest to my mother that she move to France with me.