A Room Full of Gemini

Paris is teaming with babies these days. Is it the spring? Just the natural order of things? Lamb chops for dinner and new borns in strollers? Just another month of May in Paris? Well my friends I am here to tell you that there is a lot more than happenstance going on here.

I have no doubt that those clever clever parents who gave birth this month did so with one thought in mind: May babies have the best chance of scoring a spot in the much sought after Parisian daycare system. You see daycares, or crèche in French, accept babies when they are 3 months old. This coincides perfectly with the standard 3 month long maternity leave french working women receive. The trouble is that the daycare-to-baby-ratio is way out of balance here, which means that the race to get a spot for your little cabbage is on way before they are conceived, let alone born.


This was made clear to me by the director of the most fantastic crèche in Montmartre, a sunny, clean, charming spot populated by hip parents, beautiful babies wearing hand knit cardigans and playing exclusively with Scandinavian-esque wooden toys. Coco and I dressed in our Sunday best (or rather Friday best given the history of this particular daycare) and headed up the hill to see the directrice who is available to speak to potential recrutes for two hours on Thursdays. We arrived, chit-chatted, smiled, exchanged compliments and then she cut to the chase, "Madame, as charming as you two are... unfortunately your child was born during the month of August which is.. well... a difficult month." "Difficult?" I replied. "Oui, you see almost all of the spots open up in September, when the little ones move up to the one year old room, Coco was only one month old last year so couldn't sign up with us then and this year she would be ready to go up with the one year old kids but all of the little ones from last year are taking those spots... so unless somebody moves...".

Unless somebody moves? As if anyone would move if they had a spot in daycare?

"I see..." I replied. "Well I suppose we'll just organize ourselves better next time around. So it is true what they say about the month of May then?" She laughed, nodded and sent me on my way. As I walked into the waiting room I looked around and saw a long line of parents cradling babies that were days old... May babies. As I walked down the hallway I peeked in the windows and saw rooms full of bouncy happy children... May babies. And I though to myself, my God, so many gemini! Those daycare workers must be exhausted.