French view:
Family and friends: two safe bets for
young people
In these hectic times,
French families are tending to move away from the authoritarian to co-operative model.
Young people no longer automatically rebel against their parents. The proof of this is
that they are leaving the family home at an ever later age. Have we seen the end of the
generation gap?
By Nelly Brunel, journalist
There are of course, advantages to living
with your parents, but that is not what is keeping Benjamin, aged twenty-two, in the
family nest. He can cook, do the washing, earn money. Yet he has been living with his
girlfriend Magali for two years... in Mum and Dad’s house. Why? Because he feels
comfortable there.
People are indeed lingering longer and
longer in their parents’ home. The average age at which children leave the family
home is now around twenty-three or twenty-four. Girls leave home on average two years
earlier than boys, who are more anxious to achieve genuine financial independence before
taking the plunge.
The lengthening period of education,
difficulties in finding a job and prohibitive rents are not the only reasons why children
are reluctant to stand on their own two feet. "What has vanished is the adherence to
conventions that formerly, at least officially, meant people had to marry if they wanted
to explore the pleasures of sex. So young people today no longer feel it necessary to be
one of a couple in order to have sexual relations," says Olivier Galland, sociologist
and Director of Research at the French national organisation for scientific research
(CNRS).
So the days when young people had to leave
home if they wanted a taste of freedom have gone. Ours is a time of tolerance,
communication and mutual respect in this new family structure. So "What advantage is
there [for a young person] in standing on his own two feet, when there is no longer
anything to gain outside?" adds psychologist Béatrice Copper-Royer.
But this climate of trust does not mean
that young people talk freely about their sexuality with their parents, dialogue is not
easy. While the mother continues to be the special confidante for children of both sexes,
but especially for girls, it is still not easy for father and daughter to talk to each
other.
When the child becomes a “teenager”
In adolescence, children would rather talk
about their love lives in sex education lessons at school but above all, confide in their
friends, who are essential to building or rebuilding their self-confidence and helping
them cope with this period of major physical and psychological upheaval.
Although parents often worry about the
company their children keep, the peer group is in fact essential for the adolescent,
helping them shape their identity and develop social skills. They both like and need to
meet other young people of the same age, who speak the same language, have the same tastes
in clothes, food or music. Together, they exchange ideas, confide in one another, show off
and have fun away from family constraints.
But if they do dare broach the subject with
you, "Above all, you should not get upset about their first romance. It is theirs,
not yours," advises child psychiatrist, Marcel Rufo. During this difficult period,
adolescents set out to confront adults, swearing like a trooper, shutting themselves up in
their rooms for hours, especially to telephone their friends, gulping down meals without
saying a word - except to make rude remarks to their parents.
In short, when the child becomes a
"teenager", parents who swear by the stability of their offspring, find
themselves bewildered by this stranger. Don’t panic: conflict is an essential part of
their development. "Giving respect and independence does not satisfy every
need," says psychiatrist, Patrice Huerre. "It is the duty of parents to guide
and to set boundaries."
Fortunately, adolescence can also be the
time of our fondest memories of being young. This is when we discover love. Between the
ages of twelve and fifteen, we flirt, have our first crushes, our first stolen kisses in
the cinema... Contrary to popular belief, young people are not really difficult. They are
patient, romantic and cautious and whether they go in for a series of love affairs or
stick with one steady relationship, they are always overwhelmed when a romance, however
short, ends badly.
For today’s adolescents, over-informed
by the media, sexuality is no longer a taboo. But this does not mean they are any more
mature than their parents were. The average age for the first sexual relationship has not
changed in twenty years: about seventeen for boys and eighteen for girls, and it varies
with the religious and social background (working-class adolescents, who usually enter the
world of work earlier, are generally more advanced). The emergence of AIDS does not seem
to have had a major effect on them, even though these young people are aware of the
problem.
Adult in stages
In the past, the child left the parental
home for ever and became genuinely independent, in both material and emotional terms.
Nowadays, young people prepare their adult life while still at home - they become adult in
stages. This situation of material and financial dependency has its dangers. As well as
the risk that it may becoming stifling, it can prevent young people from taking
responsibility for their own lives and keep them in a kind of passive comfort. Continuing
to live at home can also bring about changes in family relationships and create some
confusion of roles.
When they do finally decide to leave,
children continue to be dependent on their families for a long time. This
"semi-detached" arrangement leaves parents with the difficult task of providing
emotional, moral and material support for their child, while at the same time respecting
his or her independence. One in five young people comes home at weekends with dirty
laundry and then goes off again... stocked up with provisions.
Some young people prefer to live alone or
with friends for a few years, having relationships, but without feeling obliged to be one
of a couple. For even though love and the desire for faithfulness are much-vaunted values,
the white wedding is no longer the dream of these young people, many of whom have been
traumatized by their parents’ divorce. They have a genuine fear of failure and are
afraid of repeating the pattern with their own children. The figures speak for themselves.
According to one survey on the family conducted in 1999, nearly 40% of marriages in France
today are likely to end in separation.
Then one fine day, we find a soul mate,
usually from the same social circle, with the same level of education... We get married or
live together, a way of being together without necessarily committing ourselves even after
the birth of a child. Half of first babies in France are born to parents who are not
married. Then a new phase begins for the parents who are now grandparents - during which
they occasionally, or regularly, look after... their grandchildren.
The family: a safe haven
"Our society has a tendency to deny
generational differences, to overvalue the youngest and make them the model and reason for
living of the older generations. It is therefore more difficult to be sure of one’s
role than it used to be: parents tend to wonder about the validity of their authority, or
have simply never learnt to exercise it," comment Professor Daniel Marcelli and
Guillemette de La Borie, both specialists in adolescence.
However, the vast majority of parents and
young people say that they get on fairly well, and find family life pleasant, even if it
does have its problems in adolescence. Harmony depends on a degree of discretion over
intimate matters and the children’s private lives. Conflict between the generations
no longer exists at a time when up to five generations may be in close contact.
For young people in search of reassuring
points of reference in a troubled and uncertain world, the family remains a safe haven. It
feels like a refuge in a society which is difficult to become part of. While the world is
a threatening place, the family is a reassuring one.
(Text Courtesy: Label France, magazine
N° 51 – July 2003 , Embassy of France, Kathmandu, Nepal
Bavaria
In Bavaria nature and
technology, culture and pleasure unite in a fertile blend. The most southerly federal
state stands out as a favoured holiday area and a seat of high technology. All this is
owed mainly to the people living in the ”Free State.” They are hospitable and
efficient in business, definitely full of the joys of life and stubborn, just like King
Ludwig II whose legacy to the state included one of the most enchanting castles:
Neuschwanstein. A journey through the south of Germany. ”Grüss Gott – welcome
to Bavaria!”
By Johannes Willms
Many people still tend to regard Bavaria as
one of life’s biggest mysteries. Perhaps the most confusing aspect is the existence
of various seeming paradoxes. For instance, in Bavaria tradition bedecked in folklore
coexists quite happily alongside high-tech progress. Bavaria’s former
minister-president Franz-Josef Strauss is said to have reconciled this apparent
contradiction in the neat definition: ”Conservative means marching at the forefront
of progress.” Today’s snappy equivalent is: lap-top and lederhosen. This and
many other paradoxes led comedian Gerhard Polt to the conclusion that ”while the
number of people fulfilling the classic Bavarian cliché declined, the cliché itself
became strangely more pronounced.”
The bavarians are not the least bit worried
about this, as they are well aware that they are no longer seen as the backwoodsmen of the
nation. This is confirmed by the fact that many Germans would like to live in Bavaria,
especially in Munich. But, as so often in life, it turns out that even these desires
conceal a number of persistent misunderstandings. For instance, the majority of people
plagued by such longings tend to confuse Bavaria with Old Bavaria. Roughly speaking, this
is the area that stretches from the Danube to the Alps. But Bavaria actually extends to
the River Main, Germany’s ”veal sausage borderline,” which means it
includes expanses of landscape that have nothing in common with the sub alpine idyll of
the yodellers and folk dancers and can be quite rough and barren. The same applies to
Munich as well, which probably ranks highest among Germany’s municipalities, not only
in the cost of living but also in real financial terms. Yet all this does not really count
because Bavaria, and especially Munich, radiate an air of selfconfidence comparable only
to that of the two city states, Hamburg and Bremen. The reason for this is that Bavaria is
the only German territorial state to have maintained its geographical shape since Napoleon’s
great land relocation scheme of 1806. This explains the origin of another of Bavaria’s
typical paradoxes: at that time the most diverse types of terrain were united beneath the
umbrella of state consciousness engineered by the Bavarian administration, which was wise
enough to respect the various cultural characteristics and traditions. This, in turn,
illustrates why the continuity of traditional custom in Bavaria is more than, and
different from, just folklore. In the long-run this has consequences that in other places
might provoke a pitying smile, but in Bavaria anyone seeking political success has to bow
to these traditions. That is why Edmund Stoiber, Bavaria’s current ministerpresident,
has the uniform of the mountain troops hanging next to his dinner jacket in his wardrobe.
The franconian, Swabian and old-Bavarian
areas that form the state of Bavaria constitute a peculiar admixture that since ”time
immemorial” has been politically articulated by the sole governing party, the CSU
(Christian Social Union). But this is the more obvious part of the party’s successful
strategy directed toward the broader public that brings in regular election returns of
over fifty percent. The other, less obvious, but equally important part of the strategy is
the consistent realization of a bureaucrat’s dream, namely reform and progress via
administrative measures. The transformation of this dream can be attributed to quiet, but
radical, structural change over the past forty years: the onetime agricultural poorhouse
has been transmuted into an attractive company base for financial service providers and
high-tech industries. Bavaria’s economy is now stronger than that of Belgium or
Sweden, and a quarter of the state’s produce is exported. Bavaria ranks 20th on the
list of the world’s largest export countries.
This evolution shows how Bavaria saw its
underdevelopment as an opportunity and made a leap from being an agricultural state
straight into high technology, avoiding the traditional, heavy industrial phase en route.
Of course, this approach had its own hidden risks, as the example of Martinsried near
Munich goes to show. This is where, with a generous helping of financial fertilizer from
the Bavarian government, a veritable plantation of bio-technology companies was cultivated
as a unique project in Germany. But as the New Economy cooled down, the frost took its
toll here, nipping overoptimistically high hopes in the bud. But Bavaria’s image is
shaped less by the concentration in and around Munich of hitech computer and aerospace
industries or even Siemens, than companies such as automobile producers BMW or Audi in
Ingolstadt and of course Munich’s three major breweries with their beer monopoly at
the city’s annual Oktoberfest that ranks as the world’s largest public festival.
And another major player in this context is the football team FC Bayern Munich that not
only ranks high in the federal German league but is regularly among the stars of European
football.
We are now touching on a sore point as
Bavarians are not particularly pleased when Munich is always seen as the centre of
attention. Thank goodness then for culture. Even members of the Bavarian diaspora can feel
a sense of pride here. Which other federal state can boast an orchestra equalling the
Bamberger Symphoniker or an event like the Richard Wagner festival in Bayreuth where
celebrities meet at the annual rendezvous at the famous opera house on the ”Green
Hill.” Somewhat more unusual, but just as famous, are the Passion Plays at
Oberammergau, while visitors from all over the globe are attracted throughout the year to
Ludwig II’s fairytale castles, Neuschwanstein, Herrenchiemsee and Linderhof, and the
Baroque churches, castles and monasteries scattered throughout the state. This rich
heritage is an obligation that has to be tended, and when Munich receives a third art
museum of world stature in the shape of the ”Pinakothek der Moderne,” then the
least that can be expected as compensation for this image promoter is the establishment of
a state gallery or collection in Aschaffenburg, Nuremberg or Bernried. Of course, this
cannot alter the fact that Munich is the shining star around which the remaining parts of
Bavaria revolve. It is not just the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra that makes the music or
the stages of the Bavarian State Opera or the Kammerspiele that ”mean the world”.
But even the people of Nuremberg, Würzburg or Augsburg have to admit that without Munich,
Bavaria as it now is would not be a viable state, and most certainly not a ”free
state.”
Dates and Facts
Bavaria is the largest and most southerly
state in the Federal Republic. 12.1 million people live and work in an area of 70,548
square kilometres. To the west and northwest Bavaria borders on the federal states of
Baden-Württemberg and Hesse, and on Thuringia and Saxony to the north. Bavaria’s
eastern neighbour is the Czech Republic, while its southern neighbour is Austria. Munich
is the capital city with 1.2 million inhabitants. The CSU party (Christian Social Union)
has governed Bavaria with an absolute majority since 1962. Edmund Stoiber (CSU) has been
Bavaria’s minister-president since 1993.
History
Bavaria’s self-concept and its
statehood have evolved over a period of more than a thousand years. The historical epithet
”Free State” reflects the fact that the monarchy was abolished, and the term
”free state” was chosen simply to avoid the term republic. On December 1, 1946
the people of Bavaria accepted a constitution that had been worked out by a constitutional
committee at the instigation of the American military government. In 188 articles it
regulates the structure and the responsibilities of the state.
Economics
No other federal state has experienced such
a marked change in its economic structure since the Second World War as Bavaria. It has
been transformed from a predominantly agricultural state to a centre of modern industrial
and service enterprises. Although Bavaria is still Germany’s main food producer,
agriculture contributes only 1 percent to added value. Production industry contributes 32
percent and the service sector totals 67 percent. Today Bavaria means: automobile and
aerospace industries (BMW, Audi,
EADS), electrical and electronics industry (Siemens),
insurance and publishing (Allianz, Burda).
Science
With nine state universities and 17
specialist colleges Bavaria is one of Europe’s scientific centres. 14 institutes and
other establishments belonging to the Max Planck Society and the nine institutions of the
Fraunhofer Society also contribute significantly to Bavaria’s reputation in the
scientific field. In addition to this there are three major research centres: the Max
Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching, the National Research Center for
Environment and Health (GSF) in Neuherberg and the German Institute for Aviation and Space
Travel (DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen.
Culture
Bavaria looks back on a rich tradition of
cultural and intellectual history. Art treasures from around the globe are preserved and
cared for in over 1,100 Bavarian museums and collections, and they attract over 20 million
visitors each year. A star attraction is the Alte Pinakothek, one of the world’s most
significant art galleries. It was complemented last year with the opening of the
Pinakothek der Moderne, the gallery of modern art and design. The stages also have a great
deal to offer. The 15,000 performances at the 32 theatres, opera and operetta houses,
open-air venues, festivals and puppet theatres attract five million visitors each year.
The outstanding Richard Wagner festival in Bayreuth is particularly famous. Other
highlights include festivals such as ”Orff in Andechs” or the summer theatre
festival ”Theatersommer Fränkische Schweiz.”
(Text Courtesy: Deutschland Magazine,
Embassy of Germany, Kathmandu, Nepal) |
