After some time living in France, I realized I started enjoying the French language itself. At first, I tried to deny this fact with thoughts like “How can you, a future engineer, care about such mundane topic?” coming to mind. As of this writing, I can’t think of anything else other than what exactly my mind was trying to achieve with such a reaction. That’s a topic for another day.
The word mother-in-law was likely the first one that ignited this passion. In French, it translates to belle mère.
| word | raw meaning |
|---|---|
| belle | gorgeous |
| mère | mother |
Think about the choice of the wording can reflect on each society and culture. It is both subtle and powerful, isn’t it? Today, I’d like to talk about the French-way of referring to her.
My mother-in-law belle mère
From the outside, I notice her as someone who dedicates her life to the others: her own kids, her close family members, her grandkid. She’s probably in my top 5 list of people with the most empathy I saw with my own eyes.
One day, she came to our home (where my wife and I live) and while I washed the dishes, she started cleaning our stove. At some point, she said:
How am I supposed to do that? Is it ok doing like this?
If that question is not, at minimum, shocking to you, let me set the stage: she’s one of those holseholders where everything will always be clean, to the point where mortals, like us, won’t ever reach.
So, during a couple of seconds, I tried to process what was going on. I mean, she knows much better than I do, why is she asking me? I started imagining Ayrton Senna driving my car and asking for approval whether he was doing the right thing. I just could not make sense of it.
Later that day I still felt the impact of such an attitude and could not stop thiking about in which situations, with way less expertise, I disregarded other’s opinions because, you know, “I knew better”.