Is the ‘Euro Mom’ Trend All It’s Cracked Up to Be? I Spent Three Weeks in France. Here’s What I Took Away (and What I Left) As a New Mom
- Katherine Rose Woller
- Sep 4
- 6 min read
After a strenuous 22-hour travel day involving multiple flights where our baby barely slept, hours-long layovers, shuttles on both ends, and schlepping our portable-city-sized luggage through the car-less main street of Chamonix, France, all we wanted to do was eat.
We grabbed a few hurried groceries at the small market in town, but in an effort to start our Euro Trip off strong, we decided to risk the potential toddler meltdown and eat out. We were too excited to eat our first French meal and wanted to lean into the effortless joy of a magical vacation as soon as possible.
Needless to say, it quickly dawned on me that parenting in Chamonix is still mostly just parenting…in Chamonix. There’s no vacation from mom-life.
Ever since reading Bringing Up Bebe when I was six months pregnant, I dreamed of embodying the French parenting ethos. There is an ease to the way French moms show up for their kids. A mom-confidence that somehow enables them to remain unfazed, unbearably chic, and also undeniably effective mothers. The unicorn parenting method to end all methods. At least in my mind.
Before we were married, my husband and I had the good fortune of living in Chamonix for a ski season, so we instantly decided to take our daughter to one of our former date night spots. Josephine’s outdoor patio is romantic and delicious, and yes, more than a touch boujee. Quintessentially French in every way. I was ecstatic.
That is, until our very active American daughter refused to sit in her chair and instead kept running around the square. As I sprinted after her, I’ll admit I was on edge. I was starving, exhausted, and just wanted a quick hit of Euro reprieve to end my day.
No such luck.
My tired angel cried all through dinner, refused to eat, and was then publicly scolded by a rather rude waiter. I mean, yes, she was struggling, but we were outside, surrounded by other families, and I was trying my absolute best. Couldn’t he see that?
Still, I immediately blamed myself and was embarrassed when the tears began to flow. Mine, not my daughter’s.
I excused myself from the table, and that’s when it hit me: this was not going to be a vacation; it was going to be a mom-trip.
Same early mornings, same being stuck at home during nap time since she won’t nap anywhere but her crib. Same fighting for my life at meal times (at least in the beginning) because I refuse to make her an iPad kid. Add in the struggles of jet lag for a one-year-old who doesn’t understand time zones, and I had myself one seriously exhausting overseas assignment ahead of me.
I failed miserably at my very first test on French soil.
I had wanted our dinner to go perfectly, and when it didn’t, I was disappointed in my perceived failure. I wasn’t the epitome of effortless parenting cool, and somehow that made me feel like a bad mom all around.
That is, until I thought about it from a truly French perspective and decided I didn’t really care what anyone else thought of my parenting in the first place. I know I try my best as a mom, I’m certain my daughter is loved beyond measure, and I’m positive she knows that.
French moms would never have let a comment from a random waiter get them down. She would never have taken that on. Never. Never doubted herself, never doubted her mothering, never been bothered in the slightest.
Once I internalized that wisdom, the rest of the trip was cake. Okay, cake-ish.
I’ve spent years living in random places for months at a time with nothing more than a suitcase of clothes, but that comfort level abroad didn’t immediately translate into having an easy time parenting abroad.
So, over the next almost three weeks, I forced myself to practice both my French and my French parenting. A crisp glass of rosé helped, sure, but the calmer and more confident I remained, the better my daughter did, too.
It didn’t hurt that I saw a two-year-old French boy throwing an absolute fit in his mother‘s arms. Even though she was flustered at that moment, a knowing glance passed between us; a glance only moms dealing with a tantrum can understand, language and culture aside.
I started to notice the slower, simpler pace, and relaxed my American go-go-go standards, even flexing my daughter’s typically rigid nap schedule.
I let her interest guide us, and though it wasn’t the overwhelming highlight reel you think of when you plan a trip abroad, it turned out to be even more meaningful.
We lingered in plazas, as my daughter walked hand in hand with a local grandma on her way to the town church on Friday night. They laughed, wandering in circles and smiling at each other, despite the fact that neither spoke the language of the other.
We took an impromptu day trip to Italy, skipped naps entirely, and then happily paid the tired-price that night before collapsing on the sofa with a glass of local wine.
We took daily park outings, and let me tell you, nothing was more charming. Watching my daughter play confidently with other kiddos, despite being an out-of-towner and the smallest in the yard, absolutely filled me with mom-pride. They learned from each other, and even gave the parents and me a chance to chat, share stories of living in different countries, and laugh readily at our littles.
It was the perfect mixing ground for all of us, each doing our best to somehow parent abroad, and I like to think those morning park dates were a highlight for Rose as much as they were for me.
In the end, we did very little typical touristing. I mean, yes, I shopped the local markets, wore the classic mom sneakers, and serenely pushed the pram through the busy town squares. But they weren't the highlights of the trip. The true shining moment was realizing that there was a pleasantness to my daily exhaustion that felt different from home. A fulfilledness. A contentment.
A happiness in motherhood that, dare I say, felt more natural, more easeful, more French.
In some ways, you could say our trip led to a serious level-up, a promotion even. Without consciously knowing it, I was quickly schooled in the French parenting tradition, and though it was in no way a relaxing vacation, I was transformed.
Boarding the plane home for another 20+ hour journey, I deliberately left behind the delulu belief that vacation-life would ever look the same.
I may have lost the fantasy, but I also took home the lessons. To me, that made the struggle worth it.
My daughter blossomed in ways that truly blew my mind. The trip shaped her in ways I have only begun to discover, and I was present to see every single moment of it. My husband was able to spend uninterrupted time with our daughter, and their connection is forever altered for the better. They bonded deeply.
As for me, I evolved into the mom I’d always wanted to be, but struggled to find back home. Living in France for almost three weeks unlocked a confidence in me, a calmness, and a deep-rooted appreciation for the small, magical moments that make up my sleep-deprived days as a new mom on “vacation.”
Despite the work, I still intend to take European family adventures any chance we get; I might even venture back to Josephine’s for dinner one day soon. Maybe. For I wouldn’t trade the memories of this trip for anything in the world, no matter the herculean effort it took to survive it.
I guess I am a Euro Mom after all, just not in the ways I expected.
Katherine Rose Woller is a FoodFamilyTravel.com contributor. Her travel advice has been seen in Forbes, her parenting insights in Parents and The Bump, and her words in The Mother Chapter.
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