Sharon Harrigan

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More Lost in Translation: Jeune Fille

“What is your nom de jeune fille?” the banker asked me, as he entered my vital info in his computer to open my account. Jeune means young and fille is girl, or daughter, but the phrase jeune fille means something else altogether. A teenage girl, or a woman in her twenties. A sweet young thing, a hot chick, or as they say here, a nana (which is not a synonym for grandma, believe me). What’s my hot chick name? I don’t know? Can I make one up?

I didn’t say that, though. Instead, I asked, “The name of my daughter?” and started to spell it.

“No, your name before you were married.”

My maiden name. Because a jeune fille is also a maiden (or at least she was in Shakespeare’s time). A mademoiselle.

“We have to ask whether you want to use your maiden name,” he said. “And we have to use Madame, whether you are married or not. It’s a new law.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Everyone received a memo from the government. It’s illegal to use Mademoiselle anymore.”

“We got the memo, too,” said the woman from human resources, who was acting as our intermediary (because, apparently, it’s next-to-impossible to open an account without a connection).

“You can’t even call children Mademoiselle?” my husband asked. He was trying to endear himself to our French bureaucrats by engaging in the small talk we’ve been told is essential to doing any business here. If a fifteen-minute transaction takes an hour, count it successsful, because it’s all about “relationship building.”

“If fillettes start opening bank accounts, imagine, I’ll have to call them Madame!” our banker chuckled. I wondered, but didn’t ask, why little girls need titles at all.

Our previous account, at a different bank, listed our names (without asking how we wanted them) as M ou Mme James Harrigan, or Mr. and Mrs. James Harrigan. A title is not just symbolic, but practical, since this one caused many wasted hours trying to track international wire transfers that were unable to make the connection from Mrs. James Harrigan to me. I had disappeared.

But I’m back. I can’t choose my own nom de jeune fille, but I can invent a nom de plume. Candy? Bunny? Gigi? Perhaps something, like the phrase jeune fille itself, which seems to mean so many different things to so many different people—young but not too young, innocent and old-fashioned, worldly and nubile—at the same time.

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Paris Journal: Kiko Le Chien

Living in another country is like traveling back in time. Not to another era, but another age. Childhood. We speak in syncopated sentences with super-simple vocabulary, while children rollerblading in the park sound as if they’re discussing the Euro crisis or Deconstructionism or maybe the meaning of life, more quickly and multi-syllablically than seems possible.

We start to read picture books. It’s odd that our daughter, who just finished The Book Thief and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in English, doesn’t know all the words of Kiko Le Chien in French. Stranger still, neither do we.

Here we are, reading about that silly dog who wants to skateboard in the park. “Can’t you read?” the park gardien asks Kiko, pointing to a sign that says dogs must be on leash. Of course I can’t read, Kiko thinks. I’m a dog!

Of course we can’t read everything in French yet. We’re Americans.

But here we are, sprawled on the sofa with a plucky pooch, tucking away all our experience and education, all our preconceptions about how we’re supposed to act and what we’re supposed to know. Here we are, seeing the world with kindergarten eyes, laughing at Kiko, and ourselves.

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Why Kids Shouldn’t Read Grown-Up Books—Or Maybe They Should


Yesterday I was at the public library with my eight-year-old daughter, Ella, looking for information on French culture for a school report. The librarian found one book on the juvenile shelves then gave us a call number for a book in the adult section. Ella wanted to read the adult book immediately, so we installed ourselves around the only empty table in the children’s section and she opened the book to the middle. “I don’t know why this was in the grown-up section,” Ella said.

“Because it’s for grown-ups,” I said. Although I wondered, too—for about thirty seconds.

Because the next thing Ella said was: “What is A-B-O-R-T-I-O-N?

“What?” I said. Not that I couldn’t spell.

“ABORTION!” Ella shouted, as if my only problem was that I couldn’t hear. All heads—from toddlers to tweens, their parents, and every librarian—turned to see what I would say. Or maybe they were just wondering what kind of mother would let her eight-year-old read a book about abortion.

I pulled the book to my side of the table. She had opened it to the chapter on “Courtship and Marriage” and was reading about how changing views on the Catholic Church in France have affected abortion practices and therefore birth rates. “That’s why this book is for grown-ups,” I said.

“But what does abortion mean?” she persisted.

“I don’t want to tell you.” Those were my exact words, juvenile and stubborn, like a playground taunt. Ella pouted, of course now more curious than ever. I scooped up the book and told her it was time to go home.

But why didn’t I tell her? I don’t think it was just because it seemed like my entire town was watching or that I was afraid the two- and three-year-olds would look up from their Very Hungry Caterpillars and become prematurely sex-starved.

Maybe I didn’t tell her because the word means so many different things to so many different people. But if I don’t provide Ella with my version, she’ll fill the void with rumor and misinformation.

She’s bound to hear the word during the presidential campaign. I remember canvassing in my neighborhood for local and national politicians and hearing some people tell me, from behind their screen doors, that abortion was the one issue they considered when choosing a candidate. I sometimes take Ella canvassing with me, and I don’t want her to have abortion explained to her by angry Tea Partiers.

I don’t remember explaining abortion to my son, since it fell to my husband to give him the “sex talk.” What I do recall is discussing the book Freakonomics with my son when he was thirteen, including the chapter that explains the drop in crime rate as a link to Roe versus Wade (fewer crimes were committed because fewer criminals had been born).

No matter what side of the political spectrum you’re are on, abortion is not a happy subject to talk to your children about. Part of me is sad that I can’t keep Ella innocent of it forever. But the other part of me realizes it’s my duty to keep her informed. Now if I could just figure out what I’m going to say.