Are Berkeley Parents Just Like Fin de Siècle French Aristocrats?

A passing line in last month's reading has stayed in my mind over the last three weeks. So I thought I would share it with the group.

When discussing his new life at the Hôtel de Guermantes, the Narrator writes:

"M. de Guermantes would bid good day in the courtyard to two couples who belonged more or less to his world: the first, some cousins of his who, like working-class parents, were never at home to look after their children, since every morning the wife went off to the Schola Cantorum to study counterpoint and fugue, and the husband to his studio to carve wood and tool leather; and then the Baron and Baronne de Norpois, always dressed in black, she like a pew-opener and he like an undertaker, who emerged several times daily on their way to church" (GW, 33-34).

What leapt out at me when I read this sentence was how much this description of the aristocratic friends of M. and Mme de Guermantes reminded me of Berkeley parents in the year 2012!

Even when so many of these parents do have leisure time (which in theory they might spend with their kids) they often seem to feel compelled to fill it -- justify it? -- by staying busy with their various projects, hobbies, "passions."

So the cousin of M. de Guermantes goes off every morning to "study counterpoint and fugue"... Nowadays the equivalent would be... what? Belly dancing? Organic cheese-making? 

The husband goes to his studio to "carve wood and tool leather"... Nowadays it might be to sand down his surfboard. Or perhaps to digitize his old high school photo album and share it on Facebook.

And the Baron and Baronne... of Berkeley?

Surely they both have booked retreats this weekend at Green Gulch Zen Center and Spirit Rock. The nannies of these two families will no doubt meet at a park later, or wave to each other while stopping with the children for their favorite burritos at Picante...

Are we seeing in this perpetual busyness of relatively well-to-do parents the natural urges of parents to maintain their individual interests, despite having children? Or are we seeing a reflection of their generally competitive outlook, and the power of status-claims in ordering people's lives?

Of course each person's case is different and unique, but Proust's casual condemnation of these aristocratic friends of M. de Guermantes has, I think, some bite left in it for our time.

Comments

[Heather]

Actually, doesn't the data show that American parents (don't know about the French) spend more time with their kids than in previous generations? Certainly true in my case, and that of my husband, and many EB families I know...

[Tom]

I think you are right. Still, there's something about the self-expression and self-improvement culture hinted at by Proust which feels very Berkeley, doesn't it?

[Diana]

Tom, I'm curious to know the answer if you pose this question to yourself: Do you facilitate a Proust reading group to satisfy your genuine interest in French literature, or are you partly driven to compete with Berkeley parents in cheese-making classes, etc.?

[Tom C]

Probably both? Though my point was not really about the status-seeking motives of Berkeley parents (I believe we all unconsciously have these operating on us unfortunately, however much we deny it). I was more thinking of how these motives (status, but also intellectual interests, pleasures, and self-expression) can even trump their interest in time with their children. On that I think there are very few things that can pull me away! But then I'm a sap.