Les Enfants

When I first arrived in Paris it was school holidays and there were kids everywhere I went. I thought it was because their parents didn't know what to do with them so they took them to the museums and attractions around town. 

I now realize it's not because it was school holidays that these kids were taken to the museum. Every time I've gone to a museum there have literally been at least four school groups at each -- including minor museums like The Orangerie Museum. And the kids are having fun. They're interested! They ask questions! I remember being dragged to a museum on a field trip maybe once a term and we used it as a chance to let out any excess energy that the teachers were only able to control in the classroom. The tour guides were hired as babysitters for the day. 

Here the kids are encouraged to absorb art and absorb culture. They learn that it can be exciting. Those parents (or, more likely, au-pairs and nannies) that take their children to museums during school breaks are just doing so because that's what the kids genuinely seem to enjoy. I wouldn't think it weird if I heard a kid in the second grade asking to go to Pompidou here. I've seen it here for the first time that six year olds are interested in art. Six year olds. In North America going to a museum or gallery is seen as a very bourgeois way to spend your time, here it is just a way that you do spend your time.