The idea first came when, pregnant with my elder child, I visited Israel with my husband, Claude. We had a stopover in Milan on the way back, and while we were in the airport, we watched an American toddler roll on the floor like an animal, her sweatpanted mother and father barely registering her existence. Next to them, a French child of the same age sat dainty in a dress, contemplating a picture book, while her parents read. I guess stereotypes have to become stereotypes somehow.

“Look at the Americans,” I whisper-spat at Claude. “They are an embarrassment. We are an embarrassment.” This wouldn’t do, I told him. We needed a plan. That was 2007, and since then a lot has changed. We had our first son, and then a second; the boys are now 11 and eight years old. The time somehow came and went, and before we knew it we’d become a family that hadn’t really traveled that much. In the meantime, America has not gotten any less embarrassing. There are the obvious political reasons for this, though I won’t go into those. But it also feels like our country has gotten more insular and more comfortable.