Paris, City of Lice (poux to that!)

Before I came to Paris, I had the vague idea that lice were something that existed only in refugee camps and war zones. I was horrified to see a little sign on the door of a classroom in one school I checked out here, warning of a lice infestation, and immediately crossed that school off my list. How naive I was!

The only thing unusual about that school was that they warned you.

About three months later, I had my first experience of the little bêtes when one of my kids came home from school with a note from the maîtresse. I freaked out. My American Medical Association all-purpose family handbook said that after treatment of the entire family, I should burn the child's clothes and bedlinen, spray all upholstery and discard stuffed animals or quarantine them for months. I remembered that scene in The Thorn Birds where the young girl has her hair shorn off and her scalp washed in kerosene. I bought some nasty produit at the pharmacy, spent days doing laundry, and we all went around in turban towels with a horrible taste in our mouths. Suddenly terms like "nit-picking" or "lousy" or "crawling with..." or "going through with a fine-tooth comb" took on a whole new meaning.

"And it's so expensive!" I complained to another mother. What with the product, the extra laundry soap and shampoo, and the special combs, etc., I probably spent close to $100 on lice that week. And then a week later you had to do it all again. The worse thing about it was that it was hard to be sure that you'd gotten every single one... and one was enough to reinfest the whole family.

"Don't be silly!" said my new friend. "Just comb the child's hair twice a day, wash the pillowcases and look carefully at all the coat collars. You'll see, it's not a big problem! Everyone gets them, it's part of childhood."

Maybe it is here, I thought sniffily.  (I never did learn if lice have become more common in America since my childhood, since even my sisters gagged and changed the subject if I mentioned it, but certainly you don't hear about lice as much. Maybe people are just more embarrassed about it there. Still, I can't help feeling that the more thorough, stigmatizing approach has its advantages.)

The AMA book said that children had to be nit-free before being allowed back into school. At my child's French school, no one even asked if I'd done anything when we came back the next morning. I looked suspiciously at the other children. Who was the guilty party?

In the next few years, we had a louse infestation on the average once every two or three months. I cut my long hair and was alert if anyone around us scratched a neck or behind an ear. In the metro I moved away if someone's hair came near my shoulders, and I carefully inspected the cloth doilies on the back of airplane seats (so that's what they were for!).

Nothing seemed to work. The kids got lice like clockwork, and I usually discovered it on holiday, on a ferry or in the car or just before a big party. I became more relaxed and expert. I discovered that some children are têtes à poux (often the popular kids) and others rarely had them. 

I had become one of those parents.

I started to notice that French children's books, far from treating lice as disgusting,  tended to portray them as naughty rascals and kind of cute. For example, a little boy brings one of his to class in a matchbox and everyone is very amused when it escapes.

My children are mostly past the age of lice now and the methods of treatment have evolved too. No longer the poison that crept into your bloodstream, stuck to the roof of your mouth, and had unknown effects on your soft tissue. No longer the little electronic comb that zapped the little crawlies and sometimes just dandruff with a spark, or the long-tined metal combs that you raked through tangled hair for hours. The latest treatment is to suffocate them, and it's high time, as lice evolve quicker than scientists can discover "safe" poisons to kill them.

All this came back in a wave to me the other day when I saw a cute little furry green beast high on a shelf in my local pharmacy.

 

Comments

[Vivi]

Wow, you've seriously never heard of it occuring in the States? My own sister had lice when we were kids, and we were living in a pretty tony suburban area of Florida. I even remember the special shampoo she had to use (it was called Rit or Rid or something) and not only did my mother not panic, I didn't even have to use the shampoo myself, and the problem was solved pretty quickly and without fuss.

[oiseau]

This is not a French phenomenon, they're very common in the UK as well. As we were constantly reminded, lice prefer nice clean hair so it's not a personal slight. No drama in our household, just nit shampoo and a special comb at the first appearance. I think I remember being more upset that my poor big teddy (who I liked to use as a pillow) had to be treated as well.

[Colleen]

I never had them and never knew anyone that had them. I taught at a Hollywood middle school for 5 years and never ran into them. I feel the same phobia that you do.
Lice prefer clean hair?

[Pardon_My_French]

I think they are fairly common in the US, except there is definitely a bigger stigma and thus a lot of rules to follow. They weren't what I would call common at the elementary school I worked at but they occurred frequently enough that teachers tended to wear their hair up to prevent themselves from getting contaminated, plus there were no "dress-up hats" or things like that. Kids were not supposed to come back until they were rid of all the nits and eggs, although I'm not sure the school nurse had to verify before they came back. The lice problem tended to run in the younger grades. I can appreciate the laid-back attitude that it's normal, because it does happen, but I definitely appreciate any preventative action on the part of the parents and school to not spread them.

What DID shock me here was the fact that so many children in my area tend to have worms. I don't know anyone who had worms, but they seem to be very common here.

[Sedulia]

I could have written another long post about the worms, but decided it was too gross--another thing I encountered for the first time in my life within the first few weeks in France. The most shocking thing to me was that the doctor who treated the kids didn't wash his hands afterwards and then came to shake my hand!

[Sirrah]

Here in S. California we went through a couple of cootie episodes, when the children were the typical age. We all went around with mayonnaise in our hair for a week -- it wasn't much fun but we didn't feel ashamed.

[Jennifer]

Speaking as the mother of a nit-magnet, and after having bought nearly all the shampoos in France, I have to say that Paranix is the best one I've come across so far.

I mean, it actually worked.

This post made my head itchy.

[nicole]

I grew up at a small country school and there was probably a lice scare once a year, although my sisters and I only had to do the shampoo/comb-torture routine once or twice. One of the big rules at school was no sharing hats and maybe that is one the reasons it seems more common in northern WI than in someplace like southern California?
The first time I heard of someone having worms I was shocked, however. I'm pretty certain that worms cannot be caught via a handshake- this is something that kids apparently caught by sleeping over... don't even want to finish the logical conclusion of that thought.

[Sedulia]

My kids got them at the sandbox. After the second time, that was the end of sandboxes! and of worms.

Yuk.