My kids have been exposed to many things in France that they might have not encountered so young back home: snails for dinner, a taste for unpasteurized cheese, the freedom to roam the city without parents, and travel journals filled with stories of their adventures across Europe.

But for all these pluses, they’ve also been exposed pretty regularly to things that are not so nice such as public urination and daily encounters with street alcoholics. They can even point out the prostitutes whose cars line certain lanes in the Bois de Boulogne. On the one hand, it’s probably not such a bad idea for them to understand that things aren’t as cushy for everyone as they are for us. Life is messy and unfair; it’s the seamier side of living in a society where education, opportunity, ambition, and good sense are not evenly afforded and where people are free to make choices about their lives.
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