Paris, France

Growing Up Between Croissants and Metros: Being a Diplomat’s Daughter in Paris (Ages 12–16)

Paris is supposed to be the city of love, art, and romance. For me, it was the city of adolescence—four years of growing up between cobblestone streets and embassy receptions, school exams and late-night metros, homesickness and independence.

From age 12 to 16, Paris was my world. I was a diplomat’s daughter, arriving with a suitcase and a foreign accent, and leaving years later with something far less tangible but far more lasting: a new language, a thicker skin, and a more complicated sense of who I was.

Landing in Paris: Not Quite the Movie Version

When we first arrived, I imagined Paris the way movies showed it: the Eiffel Tower at every corner, people strolling with baguettes, impossibly stylish teenagers in perfect outfits. The reality was different—and, in many ways, better.

Our apartment wasn’t across from the Eiffel Tower; it was in an ordinary building on an ordinary street, with neighbors who argued loudly and carried groceries up too many stairs. The corner bakery did smell like fresh bread every morning, but the woman behind the counter didn’t automatically greet us with smiles—at least not at first.

I was 12, awkward and unsure, dumped into a city that felt older and more confident than I’d ever be. My parents were busy adjusting to new roles at the embassy. I was busy trying to figure out how to ride the metro without looking completely lost.

A New Language, A New Version of Me

School in Paris didn’t just introduce me to new subjects; it introduced me to a whole new version of myself.

Whether at an international school with classmates from everywhere, or a French lycée where the rules were strict and the notebooks were color-coded, one thing was certain: French wasn’t optional. It was survival.

At first, French felt like a heavy coat I wasn’t sure how to wear. I stumbled over words, misunderstood jokes, and answered questions with a blush and a half-whispered “je ne sais pas.” My classmates switched between languages effortlessly while I translated in my head, always a beat behind.

But slowly, something changed:

I started thinking in French during math problems.
I argued with friends in French without pausing to translate.
I caught myself dreaming with bits of French dialogue mixed in.

I realized there was “me in English”—quicker with words, more sarcastic—and “me in French”—a bit more polite, more careful, more observant. Both felt real, but slightly different, like two sides of the same coin.

Between Embassy Evenings and Everyday Afternoons

Life as a diplomat’s daughter in Paris came in two very different flavors.

On one side, there was the embassy world:

Reception rooms with polished floors and careful flower arrangements
Buffets with tiny pastries and food that looked too pretty to touch
Adults in suits talking about policies, trade, security, “bilateral relations”
Standing quietly near my parents, shaking hands, saying “Enchantée,” and disappearing as soon as it was polite

Embassy events taught me how to smile through small talk, how to balance a plate and a glass gracefully, and how to follow conversations I was too young to join.

On the other side, there was my everyday Paris:

Racing to catch the metro with a backpack bouncing against me
Sharing fries with friends on the steps near school
Cutting through narrow streets to get home faster
Standing in line at the boulangerie after class, deciding between pain au chocolat and a tarte aux fraises

Those were the moments that really made Paris mine—not the iconic monuments, but the small routines that slipped into ordinary life. The kebab place near school, the park bench that became our unofficial meeting spot, the way the city smelled like a mix of exhaust, rain, and baking bread.

Learning to Navigate: City and Self

Living in Paris at 14 or 15 is a quiet lesson in independence.

I learned:

How to read the metro map like a second language
Which stations felt safe late in the day, and which ones made me grip my bag tighter
How to walk with purpose, headphones in, face neutral—just another person in the crowd

At the same time, I was navigating the messiness of being a teenager: friendships that shifted, crushes that faded, arguments at home, and the constant question of where I actually “fit.”

In some ways, Paris made that question louder:

To the French, I was the foreign kid—with an accent that marked me, even when my grammar was perfect.
To people back in my passport country, I was the one “living in Paris,” like my life was permanently glamorous and effortless.

The truth was somewhere in between. I was just a teenager trying to pass exams, show up on time, and not get completely soaked when it rained and I’d forgotten my umbrella.

Monuments as Background, Not Centerpieces

By the time I was 16, the Eiffel Tower had become less of a symbol and more of a landmark I used to give directions.

We went to all the big places in the beginning:

Eiffel Tower
Louvre
Notre-Dame
Montmartre
The Seine riverbanks at sunset

But after a while, they slipped into the background of daily life. I’d catch a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower from a bus window and think more about homework than history. I’d walk past centuries-old buildings on my way to buy cheap notebooks.

That’s one of the strangest gifts of growing up abroad: places other people dream of become part of your routine. You don’t love them less—they just stop feeling like postcards and start feeling like streets you know by heart.

Friendships in a Temporary City

Being a diplomat’s kid means every friendship comes with an invisible time limit.

In Paris, my friends came from everywhere: France, Spain, the UK, North Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America. Our accents collided in the hallways, our lunches smelled like a world map, and our stories began with “When I lived in…”

But embassy life and expat life also meant:

People leaving suddenly when their parents’ postings ended
Goodbye parties that felt too normal
Promises to “stay in touch” that sometimes faded into a few likes and birthday messages

I learned to make friends fast and to love them fully, even knowing we might not grow old together in the same place. Paris taught me that friendship isn’t always about how long you know someone, but how deeply you connect while you’re there.

The Pressure of Growing Up “Representing” Something

Being 12–16 is hard anywhere. Being 12–16 as a diplomat’s daughter in a major capital adds a strange extra layer.

There’s the unspoken understanding that:

Your behavior reflects on your family
Your missteps could somehow echo back to the embassy
Your parents carry serious responsibilities, so your job is to “not add to the stress”

I knew the names of ambassadors, ministers, and officials long before I understood taxes or student loans. I learned to hold myself a certain way in public, to be polite even when I was tired, to hide how overwhelmed I sometimes felt.

At the same time, Paris was where I started asking real questions—for myself, not just repeating what I heard at home. About politics, about inequality, about identity, about what kind of life I wanted in the future.

Leaving Paris: Packing Up a Version of Myself

When our time in Paris ended, I wasn’t the same 12-year-old who had arrived, wide-eyed and unsure.

Packing up felt like dismantling a version of my life:

School notebooks in two languages
Metro cards I’d worn smooth
Photos in front of places that had gone from magical to familiar
Goodbye gifts and letters from friends who wrote in different languages, all saying the same thing: “Don’t forget me.”

Leaving hurt. Paris had challenged me, shaped me, and forced me to grow. It had been the backdrop of my awkwardness and my beginnings—my first solo metro rides, my first crushes, my first real sense of independence.

I knew I might visit again someday as a tourist, but never again as the teenager who lived there, dragging a school bag through its streets.

What Paris Left With Me

Being a diplomat’s daughter in Paris from 12 to 16 didn’t just give me a postcard version of the city. It gave me:

A second language that feels like another home
A sense of independence built on metro maps and missed trains
An understanding that “glamorous cities” are also just places where people rush, stress, and live ordinary lives
A more fluid sense of identity: not fully from one place, but shaped by many

When people say, “Wow, you lived in Paris? That must have been amazing,” I usually just nod and say yes. It was amazing—but not just for the reasons they think.

It was amazing because it was real. Because it was where I grew up—not in a picture-perfect postcard, but in a complex, beautiful, sometimes lonely, often vibrant city that turned from a stranger into a chapter of who I am.

If you ask me where I became a little more myself—more independent, more aware, more complicated—I’d say: on the metro, in the school hallways, under gray Parisian skies, somewhere between the embassy gates and the nearest boulangerie.