There is something about living in France for the past 25+ years that I’ve come to realize: life here is contained within a set of norms, “rules,” and rhythms that, over time, make life feel easier, simpler, and quite frankly, more enjoyable.
The Rules That Drove Me Crazy
But I didn’t always feel this way. It’s taken decades — and probably getting older, and raising a family with three children — to see it.
When I first moved to France as an American (I’ve lived in different countries, but I am American), I would literally feel a surge of panic when someone said, “ça ne se fait pas comme ça” (that’s not how it’s done) or “c’est impossible” (it’s impossible). It felt like the complete antithesis of how I had been raised. If something can be improved, then out with the old and in with the new, right? And if something is “impossible,” well — no, it’s not. It just means you don’t want to bother finding another way.
For years, I fantasized about reaching through the phone at customer service reps or bureaucratic administrators and ripping their face off when they used these well-worn phrases. I just couldn’t understand it.
But over time — as the years passed, as my children were born, and as I moved through different phases of life in France — something shifted. I began to realize that these phrases weren’t meant to be taken literally. What was being said wasn’t “this is impossible,” but rather: there is a way of doing things here, and we’re not changing it unless something truly forces us to. Because there are norms we adhere to.
So off you go, American woman — adapt.
That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in change or innovation. I do. My instinct is still to question things, to look for better ways of doing them, to push against what feels unnecessarily rigid.
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A Different Way of Structuring Life
But what I’ve come to see is that not everything needs to be constantly improved or reinvented. Some things work because they stay the same.
And slowly, instead of reacting instantly, I started to see something else. Having norms — real, widely shared norms — is actually a powerful way to live. It means that day-to-day decisions aren’t constantly being made and remade. There are rituals in place that don’t require thought. There are expectations that remove the need to question everything.
As a parent, this became especially clear. When I was raising young children here (10–20 years ago), parenting norms were relatively stable. There weren’t endless options to navigate or optimize. Children go to school — public or private — but even private schools are relatively accessible, not a completely separate world. They eat three meals a day, with little to no eating in between. They participate in activities — often on Wednesdays or once or twice during the week — usually through local clubs or the school itself. School holidays follow a predictable rhythm. Curriculums are largely standardized across the country.
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All of it created a kind of built-in simplicity.
Whether you agree with it or not, there is a structure. A rhythm. And with it, a noticeable absence of chaos.
But it’s not just the structure that creates that feeling. It’s also the fact that things don’t expand in the same way.
I’ve always believed that less is more. It’s how I set up our physical spaces at home, how I believe a schedule should look, and how we approached family life — with a husband who traveled most of the time, no immediate family nearby, and living in a foreign country. Add to that a multicultural household, with family and friends across the Atlantic, and life can get complicated very quickly.
So we kept things simple.
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Where Life Stays Contained
There were no elaborate themed birthday parties with customized cakes ordered weeks in advance at an astounding cost. It was the same cake every year that I made (thank you Laura Calder — your coconut milk cake is known in our house simply as “birthday cake”), a bit of candy, bowls of chopped colorful fruit, games of pétanque in the backyard, and swimming in the pool. Invitations went out by text or WhatsApp a couple of weeks before.
Christmas was just as contained. One stocking with small things, and one gift. That was it. I was never going to spend weeks online comparing options, making lists, crossing them off. I still don’t quite know how people do that. Christmas Eve, together with extended family, is always a get together where everyone brings part of the meal, simplifying extensively for the hosts. Christmas Day itself followed a simple rhythm: an easy brunch, and an early dinner prepared by our local butcher.
In France, I found a culture that naturally operates this way — one that simplifies by default, rather than by effort.
Children’s lives, in particular, tend to stay more contained. They are far less likely to be overscheduled, both in elementary school and later in high school. The academic day is long, expectations are high, and there is very little coddling. Activities have their place, but they don’t take over.
Sports are a good example. Children join local clubs — for football, tennis, climbing — and go once or twice a week. It’s part of life, not something that expands to fill it. There are matches, practices, and a rhythm to it, but it stays contained.
Some children do move into more competitive or elite levels, but even then, it tends to follow a defined path. They join specific programs where school schedules are adapted to allow for training. It doesn’t gradually grow into something all-consuming — it shifts into something structured.
Most children, though, simply play. Not every child who plays football is being pushed to become the next Mbappé. They play for the sport itself, for the movement, for the enjoyment. It’s accessible, local, and relatively affordable — often around 120 to 200 euros for a full season.
It’s low stress. It’s part of life. And above all, it stays simple.
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Less, Without Trying
Easter is another example of how simple things can be. It’s when French chocolatiers really come into their own. Christmas is, of course, a major chocolate season, but it competes with presents, decorations, and layers of expectation.
At Easter, chocolate stands on its own.
Parents go to their local chocolatier (or the supermarket — every budget works), choose a chocolate chicken, egg, or bell, and give it to their children. That’s it. One chocolate, often high quality, in a fun shape.
No baskets, no added gifts, no extra layers. Just something simple and good. And because of that, it feels easy. The decision is made quickly, without overthinking, and everyone knows what to expect.
Consumerism more broadly plays into this sense of simplicity as well. For a variety of reasons — cost, space, habits — things don’t tend to accumulate in the same way. Homes are smaller, expectations are different, and there is less room, both physically and mentally, for things to expand.
That shows up in everyday life in subtle ways. Holidays feel lighter when there are fewer gifts. Homes feel calmer when there is less to manage. There are simply fewer layers to keep track of.
It shows up in how women approach clothing and beauty as well. There is less constant turnover, less need to keep up, less pressure to try everything. Clothes tend to be worn and reworn, with small variations rather than complete changes. Beauty routines are relatively simple — a few products, often the same ones for years, chosen because they work rather than because they are new.
Things don’t multiply in the same way.
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What This Changed for Me
What I’ve come to realize over time is that I didn’t set out to simplify anything. I didn’t make a conscious decision to do less. I simply lived in a system where things didn’t expand in the same way — and slowly, that changed how life felt.
It quiets a certain kind of underlying chaos — especially during periods of life that are already full. It gives shape to the days. There are things to rely on, things to expect, things to look forward to. Life feels, in some sense, more organized.
It also creates space. Not the kind of space where you feel pressure to fill it or turn it into something productive, but simply space that exists because not everything is already taken up.
I stopped feeling like things needed to be bigger, more curated, or more memorable to matter — for myself or for my family.
And at the same time, the bigger moments are still there. The trips, the experiences, the times that do feel different and memorable — those don’t disappear. If anything, they stand out more because they aren’t competing with a constant stream of everything needing to be special.
There is space for both. And an appreciation for both.
What’s stayed with me is that this isn’t really about France. It’s about what happens when things don’t expand — when not every part of life is open to constant change, optimization, or addition.
It’s one of the quieter lessons from France that took me years to understand.
In the end, I’ve come to see that simplifying life isn’t about doing less — it’s about not having to decide everything.
Even if “ça ne se fait pas comme ça” still gets me every now and then.
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More From France
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