Thank god we don’t live in Sweden. AIBU?

[sw1v]

I was just reading in another thread that in Sweden, you are basically forced to send your babies into day care settings at the age of 1. Apparently 50% of 1 year olds are in full- time nurseries (very long days inc. parents’ commutes) and 95% by the time they are 2! Plus (unlike in the U.K.) there is apparently no minimum ratio for staff to children.

But what if you are a mother who simply doesn’t want to do this (or father)? I personally, would hate this. So how is it acceptable for ‘the state’ to be interfering in people’s personal spheres and family lives by making this ‘the societal norm.’ Is it because they are a high tax society and want more tax? Is this it? Well, it seems like an infringement on personal liberties to me (without wanting to sound too dramatic).

AIBU?

Sounds great and very forward thinking to me. Certainly beats paying out an entire salary on childcare, which is the situation dh and I were in when our kids were small and we both, shock horror, wanted to maintain our careers as well as being parents

Swedish preschool was introduced so that all adults had equal opportunities to earn and be self sufficient - which at the time (around 50 years ago) meant in practice that the availability of preschool was a women’s rights issue. Preschool is made available so that adults can work, study, or jobseek. Even today, if you’re not doing one of those things (or if you’re not on parental leave with a small sibling), then your kid can’t be in preschool, up until they are three, when they can go 15 hours a week regardless of what the parent is doing. Up until 1998, the preschool system was part of the social system, not the education system, and while it’s true that, like everything else, there’s a trend towards the learnification of preschool, it’s absolutely not the case that all children go, or that all children go full time - the basic principle remains that it’s there to enable the parents to have agency over their lives and futures, ie. work or study. If you have a day off, or holiday, you have to have your child home - you can’t take annual leave and have some time alone for yourself, for example. Preschool is not available for children under one, and all parents have the right to be home from work entirely for the first 18 months of a child’s life, and as others have said, parents to children under 8 have the legal right to work 75% of a 100% contract in order to be with their children. In practice, it is rather the norm for young children to be in preschool, but if i recall correctly the figures in the high 90% region refer to the amount of three year olds, not 1 year olds. And ‘full time’ is a misleading term to use - many kids are in preschool between 8:45 and 15:30 ish. The picture you imply of all one year olds being in daycare 7:00 - 18:00 simply is not in the least bit accurate, in fact it’s bollocks. Open preschools exist for those children who don’t, for whatever reason, have a place in preschool, and they were started so that, even though the pedagogical focus of preschool was really secondary to the adults-in-work focus, they still wanted all children to have equal access to the pedagogical aspect - hence the open preschool which is a kind of drop in playgroup for kids and parents together. It’s true that the average age group attending open preschool is now broadly 0-18 months, but you can absolutely go there with older children - mine were nearly six when we stopped going. The OP contained such insanely inaccurate sweeping statements, it’s no wonder fake news spreads like wildfire nowadays.

@mugandspoonand all medicine for children is absolutely free.

@mugandspoon I meant to say that AND all..

Wish I lived in Sweden. Was an absolute faff trying to sort childcare for my dc when they were born, I gave up work in the end because the admin of it all was so stressful whenever anyone let you down or you needed to stay late at work etc.
At least swedes don't force you to rely on family members free childcare or the alternative to pay a small trust fund out on childcare to continue a career!

@sw1v

Well fair enough, I should have checked the exact stats before I posted. But I thought someone in here might know about this and explain if or why it’s true. And I am asking AIBU. This is the point!

So something that is not going to affect you and yet you are frothing over it ? Yab ridiculous. What you actually mean AIBU to want everyone to be like me to vindicate my decisions

@lampshadewonder that, and if the children are sick you get to stay at home with 80% pay for however many weeks it takes. With no bad conciense, because it’s very much accepted both for mums and dads.

Personally, I’m bloody annoyed that I’m basically forced into term-time work in a country where you have to rely on family connections for childcare, and I have none. I would much rather be in Sweden, or almost any other European country.

I think at the very least childcare should be tax free but it would be better to be a fund that all employed people pay into and subsidise. But I'd go one further and make all employers pay into a maternity, paternity and sick pay fund so we start to pay all employees proper maternity, paternity and sick pay instead of the current situation where the lowest paid and most vulnerable get very little. Creating these funds would remove the direct financial burden of maternity pay, childcare costs and sickness costs from individual firms, reducing discrimination in the work place.

No it's true and they reguard it as a super healthy thing for well socialised children, and it means mums don't have huge guilt about working. And it's okay that they are different to us :-)

It’s not true, and some mums still feel guilt about working!

@PickUpAPepper

Personally, I’m bloody annoyed that I’m basically forced into term-time work in a country where you have to rely on family connections for childcare, and I have none. I would much rather be in Sweden, or almost any other European country.

Where do you live?!

@MrsTerryPratchett

Yes Sweden forces people to put their children in nurseries at one. Also, Holland makes people eat waffles and the Italians have opera as an A level.

Societal norms aren't 'forcing'.

Apart from anything we should be copying them because they're delightful people.

This is because it's impossible to live on one income in Sweden, both parents need to work for financial reasons. Worlds highest taxes and so on. My friends who live there all work between 75-100% jobs, and still handle most of the family admin. It is exhausting. Few have any help, such as a cleaner or nanny, that's definitely a societal norm. You don't outsource these things as there is a stigma attached to it, although it looks like the younger generations are less adverse to this than the older ones. It is just very expensive, and most people won't be able to afford this. I have friends where both parents are lawyers and they still don't have a cleaner as they feel it would be frowned upon.

With no nannies, it's very long days at school for the children (they can often stay after school in a kind of 'club', until around 6pm) and stressful for the parents who feel rushed having to pick them up on time.

As a woman, you obviously keep your career going even if you have children, mostly out of necessity, but also because you would be quite lonely as a stay at home-parent beyond the first year or so (unless you have several children pretty close together). There are clear benefits to this but I will say that in that system, it's going to be more challenging to advance your career as a mother vs a father: just one small example, who stays at home when the children are unwell and off school or nursery? 90/100 it's the woman, as she often has the lower income in the family. So it makes more sense to have the higher earner be the one who goes to work in these situations. My Swedish female friends take most of the burden in these cases, for that exact reason. If you are constantly off work in the winter months to look after your kids, you won't be doing your career any favours.

And add to this that typically, women tend to shoulder the overall burden of keeping family life going: buying birthday presents, booking dentist appointments, buying those shoes the children grew out of, writing the Christmas cards, the list goes on. I am of course generalising but I am basing this on conversations who my friends both male and female who live in Sweden and also Denmark, which is similar

[quote Winterlights1]@lampshadewonder that, and if the children are sick you get to stay at home with 80% pay for however many weeks it takes. With no bad conciense, because it’s very much accepted both for mums and dads.[/quote]
depends on who you work for... it's not necessarily going to help your career if you are not to be counted on during 6 months a year when the flu and colds make the rounds in school

The VAB stats show that it’s around 60/40 women to men staying home with the kids if they’re sick…

Sorry that was to Waitinginmycar

@LadyJaye

Is it Sweden where nursery staff have at least an undergraduate degree as standard?

If not Sweden, then definitely a Scandi country.

Strangely enough, it's both Denmark and Sweden! And it's a 3.5 year degree which includes over a year of teaching practice. In Denmark, the translated degree qualification is called a Bachelor of Social Education or Pædagog Uddannelse, of which there is no comparison in the English system. Having trained in both the UK and Denmark I can categorically say the Scandinavian system is above and beyond ours.

Having had children both in English and Scandinavian nurseries I actually really rate the one we used in London as highly as the Scandi one just more expensive. Schools on the other hand… but I could talk for hours

@Waitinginmycar but that's the case in the UK too with added extortionate childcare fees.

but everything about the place is hostile and suspicious. Most miserable year of my life but I knew if I could endure Sweden I could endure anything

As someone who worked in Stockholm for quite a while, I haven't a clue what you are on about. People were delightful I just wouldn't venture outside of the city.

@JesusIsAnyNameFree

but everything about the place is hostile and suspicious. Most miserable year of my life but I knew if I could endure Sweden I could endure anything

As someone who worked in Stockholm for quite a while, I haven't a clue what you are on about. People were delightful I just wouldn't venture outside of the city.

I didn't work - I studied at the University and the cost of living was obscene - people were guarded and suspicious of foreigners - but why wouldn't you venture outside of the city? How unusual? - I couldn't afford to - what was your reason?

@whippetmug

It's pretty well known the immediate areas around the city are quite full of crime. I went to different parts of Sweden though.

I never experienced any guarded or suspicious behaviour.

Not sure how old this is, but the nursery setting seems lovely.