Continuing a Legacy: De Mère en Fille

Kristin is delighted to pass on her writing métier to her daughter…

Οften in France, you’ll notice a sign above a shop window that reads, under the business name, et fils. It means ‘and son’. It’s a quiet declaration: this trade has been passed down, generation to generation. I’ve always admired that idea how a métier can be transmitted, protected and lovingly continued.

Having my shoes repaired by a third-generation cordonnier, buying a baguette from a family-run bakery, or choosing a beautiful parapluie from a multi-generational umbrella maker feels meaningful. Walking into a historic atelier, you are enveloped in the soul of the place. Leaving, you take a part of it with you.

THE LEGACY WE LEAVE

As someone who has practised a long-standing métier of her own, I’ve often wondered what it might mean to pass it on. Blogging, born some 30 years ago, is every bit as much a vocation, I tell myself, as that of a couturier or horloger.

A blog, too, can be handed down. Ever hopeful, I never pushed the idea on my daughter. She was busy discovering her own chemin and what a winding path it’s been. After design school in Toulon and a stage with a haute couture designer in Paris, Jackie surprised us all by changing course entirely… to bartending. This she did with flair before pivoting again to Pilates. Just when her next move was to become a travel guide in Provence, she up and moved to New York City, where she eventually began working with toddlers in a French immersion school.

Meanwhile, I waited – secretly hoping she might one day be interested in writing. Having passed its 24th year, my blog-and I-began to wind down. What becomes of an entire generation of stories, of a legacy shaped quietly over time? They either disappear into the archives… or await a next instalment. And then, one day, it happened.

“Ça y est, Maman,” she said. “If you ever need a break, I’d be happy to write a story for you.” And that’s how my daughter became une pigiste for French Word-A-Day.

THE NEXT GENERATION

Every métier passed from père to fils leaves behind something solid: tools for the watchmaker, patterns for the parapluier, moulds for the baker. Ours leaves words, and now a volume of collected stories. A Year in a French Life: Volume Two is being published this month, and it’s co-authored this time. You might say we finally have et fille under our virtual shop sign.

I hope that, like a pair of boots freshly returned from the cobbler, you’ll feel just as at home in my daughter’s stories as you do in mine. And perhaps if luck and timing allow she’ll one day stand in for me here at France Today. That would be a dream come true for her… and for me.

FRENCH VOCABULARY

• ET FILS = and son
• LE MÉTIER = trade; vocation
• LE CORDONNIER = cobbler
• LE PARAPLUIE = umbrella
• L’ATELIER = workshop; studio
• L’HORLOGER = watchmaker
• LE COUTURIER = fashion designer
• LE CHEMIN = path
• LE STAGE = internship
• ÇA Y EST = that’s it; here we go
• LE PIGISTE / UNE PIGISTE = freelance writer
• LE PÈRE = father
• LE FILS son
• LE PARAPLUIER = umbrella maker
• ET FILLE = and daughter

From France Today Magazine

Lead photo credit : Back cover photo