Foreign Mom Disorder.

The discovery that your child has a disorder is always a shock, no matter how much you should have known it was coming. I recently found out about my own children’s affliction that I should have realized they would contract by moving to France: Foreign Mom Disorder.

FMD. It’s incurable unless and until you move back home. Language, while only part of the problem, is often the immediate indicator of FMD. Back in the U.S., we would say that a foreign mom like me speaks “pigeon English.” Here, they would say that I speak “like a Spanish cow.” And I probably do.

Just a few years ago, I was a normal young American mother with little American babies in the United States. We were living in the New York area, where everyone—from the street sweeper to the mayor—is a freak of some sort, so I guess we fit in nicely. In any case, I wasn’t foreign by any stretch of the imagination. And my kids thought I was normal. Now they’ve discovered the freakily foreign beast that is their mother.

Last week at a school parent-teacher meeting about the upcoming swimming lessons for my son’s class, I raised my hand to give the other parents the benefit of my experience with my daughter’s swimming classes last year. My mistake was that I was speaking in front of a group of native Frenchies and, worst of all, in the presence of my own son. I said, in French, “hey folks, I learned last year that it’s really important to remember to pack a goûter (snack) in your kid’s swimming bag because they’re really hungry and drained of energy after swimming class.” I looked up and saw a sea of blank stares from an auditorium full of mothers. And my son hid in shame.

For once I actually hadn’t said anything horrible, but I knew I had made some sort of mistake. What was it? Was it my accent? Did I conjugate a verb improperly? Jeez, somebody cut me some slack here; I’m giving you free advice. I tried to replay what I had just said in my mind to find my error.

The closest mother over to my left leaned over and said, “yes, the collation is definitely important.” Goûter means snack. Collation means snack. This is all a dictionary will tell you. Is there a difference? Yes. So here’s this week’s free language lesson (from me instead of Isabel!)—goûter means afternoon snack and collation means morning snack. And never the twain shall meet.

Meanwhile my five-year-old son is writhing in pain hiding behind my coat. Has he suddenly been stricken by appendicitis? Gastric reflux? A high-grade fever? No, he’s suffering from Foreign Mom Disorder and it’s all my fault. He’s hiding because his mom is such an idiot that she doesn’t know the difference between snack and snack and he’s ashamed that his mom is such an idiot.

Remember that foreign kid in school when you were young? The one whose mom didn’t speak English? The one whose home smelled like mystery meat? You suspected it was of the dog variety. It's like the kid in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding who has parents she thinks are from another planet. They send her off to school with moussaka in her lunchbox, an eggplant-based dish that she’s very lucky to have instead of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches like the other kids. But all she knows is that when she tells the others what she’s eating, they hear moose caca instead, to her enduring shame.

That’s what I’ve inadvertently done to my kids. In fact, when I send them off on a fieldtrip with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and homemade chocolate chip cookies, they have no appreciation for the fact that peanut butter costs 15 euros a kilo here. All they know is French kids hate peanut butter and I was supposed to have packed jambon-fromage on baguette bread and a little tub of yogurt like all the other moms.

My oldest daughter is getting to the age where FMD is becoming acute. She and I were at the grocery store the other day in the checkout line when I suddenly realized that I had left my wallet at home. I asked the teenager behind the counter if I could leave my purchases to run home for my wallet and come right back.

In retrospect, I know that the right word for wallet is portefeuille, but for some reason it came out as porte-manteau—coat rack. So I was saying, “Excuse me, may I leave my groceries while I go home to get my coat rack.” “Coat rack?” the teenager says. “Yeah, coat rack.” What’s not clear here? “Why do you need your coat rack?” she asks. “To pay,” I said. We were at an impasse. She’s thinking idiot foreigner. I’m thinking rude Frenchie. Then my daughter, hiding in shame behind my coat just as my son had done before, steps in and whispers “Portefeuille, Mom. You need your portefeuille.”