Maier chez Ruquier

Laurent Ruquier (presenter): There’s a lot of humor in your book. It’s an essay, a pamphlet. I imagine, I hope that you did exaggerate.

Corinne Maier: Of course, it’s a caricature.

LR: You relieve me! Your book is very funny! It’s so politically incorrect! Besides you say in the book: “Today the world is dedicated to childhood. Have children! Everyone shouts that having child is terrific”. And you are a mother. You could have made this book while not having child. How much do you have children?

CM: I have 2 of them.

LR: 2 children. Did they read your book?

CM: I told them that they can have one copy of it. But they didn’t get the opportunity to have one in their bedroom.

LR: They can’t read yet because she didn’t want to make them do their homework because she found it boring. You say that it’s one of the reasons not to have kids.

CM: It’s true that homework is deeply boring.

LR: (when you have kids) you don’t have friends anymore?

CM: Well, having kids doesn’t make easier social relationships. It’s because parents are inevitably stuck at home, sometimes watching TV. Parent’s evenings are less interesting than those of singles, who can go out as often as they wish.

LR: Having sex is over?

CM: Having kids doesn’t make easy couple relationships.

LR: You say it well in the book. You’re talking about mean French family. Of course, if you have a nanny, if you have somebody to take them at school, if you have somebody who cooks for them, and if you live in a 200m² apartment, you can fuck in the other ends of the apartment. But if you are in a 50m² apartment, it’s much more difficult to make love with your husband.

CM: Yes, of course, it’s part of the disadvantages of having kids. These disadvantages are numerous, even if society tells us that it’s wonderful to have a kid. We have to be fair about what is everyday living for a lot of people.

LR: You even say that people mustn’t have kids because family is awful. “Actually, modern family is retreated into its shell prison, based on child. Family is quarrels under the Christmas tree, moments of truth telling with your mother-in-law whereas you didn’t want to, hatreds coming from several generations, shameful family secrets that nobody wants speak about but which weigh on everyone. Most of murders and pedophile crimes happen in family surroundings. People have to think about that.” That’s terrific.

Michel Polac (journalist and writer): Let’s remember that André Gide said “Family, I hate you” a century ago. He shocked in his time. Jean Anouilh wrote some plays that were hard with family.

LR: You say: “keep on having fun when you don’t have kids, because when you have some one day, you can’t.” You wrote a list of things you can’t do anymore when you have kids: “from now on, free and improvised activities that you have to abandon are numerous: sleep a whole night, wake up late, decide to go to the cinema at the last moment, go out after midnight because of the baby-sitter, visit a museum or a painting exhibition because kids start to shout after 5 minutes, take vacation somewhere else that a stupid place where there is sea, beach and a kids activities, take vacation not during school vacation, drink before baby-bottle’s time, smoke in front of your kids because it’s now a crime against humanity.” In short, kids are hell.

CM: Yes, having kids is difficult today, because modern society expects parents to be irreproachable. Being parent is a vocation. Society’s expectations are so high that being parent is a sort of full time job, very oppressive, with lots of moral responsibilities. And we have to thwart that by the mean of humor.

LR: About breast-feeding, don’t even think about it. You didn’t breast-feed your children, did you?

CM: No, I didn’t. And I was been feed with baby-bottle. But I’m not sure that this kind of biographic informations is very interesting.

LR: Yes it is, as you talk about it in your book. You say: “breast-feeding is slavery. First, it’s painful, and did you ever see breast-feeding woman’s breasts? It’s a little bit disgusting.”

MP: That’s not true!

LR: That’s what she wrote! “Breasts hurt with cracks, milk trickling on the nipple. Yuk, yuk, yuk!” she wrote. “The mother has to be totally devoted and available to her infant, to witch she is always stuck, infinitely exploited. On top of that, beer and alcoholics drinks are forbidden, because alcohol goes in her milk. I asked a friend why the hell she breast-feeds. She answered in a reproachful way: it’s my own choice. Not at all, it’s more and more a collective obligation.”

Men (journalists and guests): No, of course not.

CM: Yes, it is! Don’t be ridiculous! It’s a matter of fashion. Nowadays, it’s in fashion to breast-feed, because some says it’s natural.

Men: It’s medical.

CM: But everything is medical. Eating vegetables is medical. Do this, don’t do that. Make some sport, make some Taï-Shi, and make things. That’s ridiculous! Moreover fashions change every 5 years. You must lay down babies on this side, and after it’s on the other side. As I wrote, these are fashions that always changes.

LR: You laid your kids down anyhow. You didn’t care, did you?

CM: No! What I want to tell you is that fashions, for an example for feeding kids, change. When my daughter was born, doctors explained to me that I had to vary her food when she was 4 weeks old. Most of our adolescents tasted a piece of omelet, a piece of vegetable, anything, when they were 4 weeks old. Of course they spited it back immediately. That was very difficult for the mother that had just give birth to give such ridiculous things to her baby. That was a sort of Diktat from the gynecologist. And doctors discovered many years later, that it was unhealthy for the baby, because it causes allergies. So now, you mustn’t vary your baby’s food too early.

Lou Doillon (actress and Jane Birkin's daughter) speaks about the necessity of the germs for the new-born baby, the consequences of sterilization of the baby-bottle, and the interest of breast-feeding in regard of baby’s immunity.

LR: Let’s forget breast-feeding, because it’s only one of the 40 reasons for not having kids.

Franz-Olivier Giesbert (journalsit): This book is extremely funny. There’s a lot of argument and it’s funny. There’s simply one problem that spoils the book, and we have to talk about this, it’s the look of a child. There’s nothing more beautiful that the look of a child.

LR: She’s going to make fun of you!

FOG: It’s lacking.

CM: In my point of view, a very good movie is more beautiful than the look of a child. It turns me upside down much more. I’m sorry, I like cinema very much, I like to ear talking about cinema.

FOG: You can’t say that. It’s not true.

CM: Yes, it is. I’m sorry, but in my point of view “La Dolce Vita” is a marvel and I know few children that have turned me upside down that way.

LR: What if she means it?

Jane Birkin (singer): It’s very funny!

Eric Zemmour (journalist): Wait a minute. In my point of view, there are two ideas. First, I agree with Franz. This book has a failing: she seems not to understand that procreation is the unconscious aim of human beings. That is, I think that we are the fruit of an evolution that happened over several millions years. And if we are alive now, it’s because previous ones wanted to have children. It’s the proof that having children is vital.

LR: I interrupt you. She says something very interesting: since contraception allowed women chose if they have kids or not, parents feel much guiltier. Indeed, as they choose to have a child, they have to be perfect. They did not feel guilty that much before, when they couldn’t choose to have a child or not. Contraception changed everything.

EZ: She is right when she says that since every child is wanted, guilt switched. Before, the child had to do everything to be loved by his parents. Nowadays parents have to do everything to be loved by their children. And that’s what she says. Actually, what her book says? It doesn’t say “don’t have kid”, it describes the drift of the king child.

LR: I don’t agree altogether. In some chapters of her book she talks about that, but not in others.

EZ: It’s about the king couple that reigns on individuals, the king child who reigns on family. She says something funny. Nowadays, we say a “hyperactive child”; before, we used to say “an exasperating child.” I would add: today we say “a gifted child”; before, we used to say: “a studious child”. But the standard of education is now so low, that they all became “gifted” and we gather them to gather in class for gifted children.

MP: Something bothers me in your book. At first sight, I laughed a lot. When you speak about bedrooms filled of toys, children collapsing under presents. And it’s absolutely unbearable…