I Taught My Children French, Incorrectly, and It’s My Favorite Mistake.

How a small mistake in our French learning journey turned into a charming family tradition—and why I’m embracing imperfection along the way.

It’s taken me about a month to draft a new post after launching French-ish… because, perfectionism. Substack for me has become a little corner of the internet where I seek reprieve from my overarching feelings of perfectionism, yet here I am allowing it to take of my creativity once again. Not this time. Instead, I’m going to use this brain blockage as an exercise to simply free write. I can’t tell you the last time I just sat with my thoughts and allowed myself to create words on paper or my laptop. It’s a freeing feeling.

So, with that said, I wanted to share a little story about how I taught my children French, incorrectly.

When I first decided to introduce French into our home, I had these grand visions of my children effortlessly absorbing the language—like those chic little Parisian toddlers chattering away at a café while nibbling on a pain au chocolat. I imagined our days filled with French storybooks, charming sing-song phrases, and conversations that rolled off the tongue as smoothly as a well-made crème brûlée.

On my journey of implementing little French ways of living into our everyday life, I discovered le goûter—the sacred French afternoon snack between school pickup and dinner. It was a small ritual, but one that immediately felt like something we needed in our home. The example recipe I found was simple: a fresh baguette, a block of dark chocolate, and a smear of butter. A perfect balance of indulgence and restraint, as the French seem to do so effortlessly.

But here’s where things went a little sideways.

Somewhere along the way, I mistakenly assumed that le goûter referred specifically to that particular snack—the baguette, the butter, the chocolate. So, every time my kids asked for a treat in the afternoon, I’d offer them “le goûter” in the form of bread and chocolate. They happily accepted, and before long, they started calling every chocolate-filled pastry le goûter.

Now, if you ask my children what a chocolatine or pain au chocolat is, they’ll look at you blankly. But ask them if they want a goûter, and they’ll confidently expect a flaky, buttery pastry stuffed with chocolate—because that, in our house, is what goûter means.

And honestly? I kind of love it.

And isn’t that the essence of being “French-ish”?

I think that’s why I’ve struggled to write here. Perfectionism creeps in, whispering that I need to have every sentence polished, every idea fully formed before I dare to share it. But life—especially a French-ish one—isn’t about perfection. It’s about embracing the beauty in imperfection, about allowing things to be slightly undone, slightly raw, yet still full of meaning.

So here I am, choosing to write anyway. Choosing to embrace my imperfect French, my imperfect writing, my imperfect but wonderful life. Because if my children can learn from my flawed French, maybe I can learn something from my flawed creativity.

And maybe, just maybe, you’ll find something in here that speaks to you too.