• I homeschool my son, which allows us to travel and live wherever we want. 
• We spend half the year in France and half in the United States at our home in the South. 
• Parenting him in each place has differences and similarities. 

NEW LOOK

Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read preview

Thanks for signing up!

Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app

Email address

Sign up

By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You can opt-out at any time.

It's always been important to me to introduce my 15-year-old son to as many cultures, countries, languages, people, and places as I can, but I haven't always had the means to do so. For most of his life, I pieced together gigs as a wedding photographer and a writer. We managed to see a lot of the United States by way of domestic flights and a lot of road trips before taking two trips out of the country, to France when he was 6 and then Iceland when he was 9.

Three years ago, my partner and I started traveling between the US, Panama (where we lived at the time), and France (where he began his business and works frequently). I saw an opportunity to expand my kid's horizons, literally and metaphorically.

He homeschools, which makes it easy to travel and gives us a flexible schedule. I figured, why not bring him to France as much as we wanted? After all, raising a kid in multiple countries between four adults, as his dad has remarried, is unusual but not unheard of.

So I started bringing him with us to France as often as possible, which amounts to about half the calendar year. The actual months vary, as well as how long he stays each trip. For example, so far this year we spent all of January in France, and will return in early May for the entire summer. While there are plenty of similarities between parenting in the US and parenting in France these days, there are a few key differences that I really enjoy in both.

Our daily routine is different

Our days in France always begin and end entirely differently than they do in the US. In France, we tend to stay somewhere close to the city center. Last year, we stayed in a rented apartment in Cannes and Grasse and it was a five minute walk to cafes, museums, or whatever else we wanted to do.

He's often coaxed awake by the wind blowing through the wide-open windows, and we get dressed and head to a bakery for croissants and juice, struggling through our limited French and constantly chastising ourselves for not knowing more. It's not uncommon to begin our days around 11 a.m. or noon, no matter how far removed we are from jet lag, because we're still several hours ahead of our work and friends in the States who might jar us from sleep earlier.

However, in the US, where we live in the South, we are more removed from the hustle and bustle, so our days are quieter. Because of that, we also tend to drive much more. It's hot here most of the year, so our windows are usually closed and our days tend to start much earlier, somewhere between 7 and 8 a.m.

We're more physically active in France, and eat different foods, too

As you might suspect, we're a lot more physically active in France, too. Whether it's running to catch the train in Paris or taking long, looping walks through Nice, we're often outside because we have to be — and because it feels good. In the summers, we buy inexpensive roller skates and skateboards at Decathlon, though the only one of us who is really any good at either is my 40-year-old partner.

Though we take long walks in the US, it feels less enjoyable where we live without the backdrop of Europe or the ability to jump into a shop or cafe when we need a break. And, like a lot of Americans, we don't live near reliable public transit and are required to drive to most places we need to be.

In France, we are also a lot more adventurous with our meals, whether we're cooking at home or eating at a restaurant or café. Last summer, my son tried more types of pasta than I knew existed, a feat he was enormously proud of, especially as a vegetarian. We like being surprised by the flavors of new and different foods, and we also like our tried-and-true favorites, like cookies and beverages that we only buy from specific shops in specific cities.

Each place has its own feeling

There's what I can only describe as a "vibe" when we're in France — he might still spend too many hours on his phone, but when we're out and about, we're really out and about. And it's not because we're in vacation mode — as a journalist, I take my work with me, and he always has some kind of project or book he's working on, which means we're both spending plenty of time in the real world, too. It just feels like we're more present and in the moment while we're there.

Our home in the US is removed from the city center, so our days are typically quieter and less energetic. We don't necessarily move, mentally or physically, with the same speed that we do in Europe. At first, this made it feel a little boring when we would come back to the US, but lately it's become something that we are both able to appreciate for what it is: a cocoon of sorts, if you will.

As my son has moved more deeply into adolescence he's enjoyed more freedom in both locations. I'm not quite ready to let him hop on the 9 and traverse half of Paris by himself yet, but the fact that I'm even thinking about it makes it a lot easier for me to drop him off at the mall back in the States with his friends for hours and have no idea what they're getting up to. At 15, he's more or less in charge of when he goes to sleep and knows when he needs to wake up on certain days, but during our first summer in France his sleep schedule evolved to essentially a midnight to midday, solid 12 hours kind of experience.

Living in two countries has relaxed my parenting in a lot of ways, the same way it's given him a window into how other people live only a (relatively) short flight away.