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?

@banivani

I don't disbelieve Whippet's experiences at all, I think Sweden can be immensely difficult to move to as a foreigner, and as a poor student stuck in Stockholm in the 90s... brrrr. I don't recognise the passport thing at all though. Wondering if someone misinformed you and that would just have been the final turd in the fan for you I suppose!).

I think you'd have had a much more positive experience as a student in Uppsala or Lund, as you say, and likely your recollections would be more of the "they're odd people but I got on with a good few alright and went to some great parties". ;) I think it can be very tough for Irish people, the culture is very different and could certainly exacerbate feelings of loneliness. A writer, forget who, wrote about a foreigner coming to Uppsala on Walpurgis (last of April) and being blown away by the atmosphere! the party! the joy and friendliness of the people! and deciding to stay. Come November they didn't know what had hit them, lmao.

It's ridiculous to assume Sweden is some sort of equalitarian paradise of course. I direct you all to the recent UN criticism as regards women's rights www.ungeneva.org/en/news-media/meeting-summary/2021/10/la-suede-joue-un-role-de-chef-de-file-en-matiere-degalite-entre

I'd also like to say that the discussion on how young children in preschool should be and for how long is ongoing here in Sweden. And I think it's naive to refuse to admit that some children are in preschool because it's convenient to parents who get "me" time. Preschools are not all little cozy family-run units, they can be very large and feel quite impersonal (parents in bigger cities/towns might therefore shop around a lot before deciding). (But for the record, they're supposed to be a resource for parents who need childcare while they are working. Ie you're not even supposed to swing by the shop on your way home before picking up the kids, you're supposed to pick them up first and shop after.)

There's definitely a lot to discuss about how much we actually permit individual needs to influence childcare and personal life. The Swedish system is sort of rigged so that whether it's the best choice for your individual child or not at that particular time, you will be putting them in childcare at 18-24 months of age. The UK system is rigged so that children are put in uniforms at the age of four and sent to school, , whether the child is really emotionally able for that sort of structure or not, with little opportunity for unstructured play during those hours and very little outdoor space. I mean we all operate within the constraints of society, none of us are truly free.

And this is why the Swedish system is organised so that almost exclusively women can't as easily "freely choose because it just happens to be the best thing for our family" to be home with children for about ten years of their working years. It's set up so that in theory women can work full time. In practice women have still been doing most of the unpaid household labour and we have had a culture of almost exclusively women "freely choosing because it just happens to be the best thing for our family and after all he earns more money" to work 75%. Change happens slowly and other incentives are probably needed. Privately outsourcing domestic labour to other women (nannies, cleaners) doesn't solve THAT problem.

It wasn't just me and my Irishness that left me feeling unconnected and unwelcome in Sweden, I knew other students from Spain, Italy, Germany, France, England and the Netherlands and everyone was just biding their time to leave, it was like a bloody prison sentence. There was a rumour that 2 of the Germans actually enjoyed living there - I hadn't met them though, so maybe that was a joke - and annoyingly we were all too spread out from each other to rely on fellow Erasmus students. No doubt summer would have been more fun had I stuck around - but the winter was too hard to bear.

Whippet your posts are interesting. I did an exchange year at university, in Boston, and it was a blast. Students had loads of options, not sure if anyone chose Sweden.

@Cocomarine

Does the IKEA café sell Swedish egg-on-your-face?

One plate for OP, please! 🤣

I think you've won the internet

I lived opposite a nursery and observed every morning stressed out parents dragging crying,tired very very young children at 7am to nursery.

Well, that's not pejorative and emotive language at all, is it?

And if you read up on attachment theory, you'll find out that current recent research suggests that John Bowlby's work has been heavily criticised and that the reality is much more nuanced and black and white than you would like it to be.

The only way to reduce the cost of childcare is to increase government subsidies as Sweden does. But UK public is unlikely to welcome the high taxes needed, especially given a large number of single-person households. Or decrease the quality as plenty of other countries do. That won't be welcome by parents either. Most nurseries operate with small margins.

@MarshaBradyo

Whippet your posts are interesting. I did an exchange year at university, in Boston, and it was a blast. Students had loads of options, not sure if anyone chose Sweden.

I stupidly went to see a placement lecturer at Uni who convinced me to go to Sweden (I had wanted to go to Australia but they had no exchange set up) - I thought Sweden sounded exotic and exciting. My sister went to Boston and had a blast too - I joined her and worked there for a summer, good times!

Yes phew!
Much better in Tory Britain with massive levels of child poverty , food banks and sewage in the sea that living in Sweden where people makeup shit.

Ah Whippet, my condolences, honestly. Winter is very tough! (And as a person not from Stockholm I am always open to slagging them off of course ;) ) I studied with an Australian exchange student one winter and she kept arriving later and later to class and one morning blurted out, in desperation, "does the sun ever come back???". But she had a nice, social time of it anyway so you really had the worst luck! It makes me sad to hear but I'm not at all inclined to doubt your experience. I think it can be hard to find a place in Swedish society, especially short-term.

I think you'd have had a much more positive experience as a student in Uppsala or Lund, as you say, and likely your recollections would be more of the "they're odd people but I got on with a good few alright and went to some great parties". ;)

You’re right about Lund. My best friend went on a year’s study there are part of her course 25 years ago and never came back. I went across to see her when she was in Lund and it was a great experience.

@BoredZelda you are absolutely right and I should have been clearer. We need early years provision to be more affordable for parents but also better paid for nursery workers, who are usually on NMW, many of which have kids themselves who they have to put into nursery.

I think it's absolutely possible to do this, we only need to look to our European neighbours. Yes, they may pay more tax but they get back a lot on subsidies- not just for childcare but travel and (I'm talking about France again) even lunch vouchers. Sadly this government is far more interested in spaffing money on their mates' eye-wateringly expensive contracts à la test and trace (£37 BILLION, anyone? That's a lot of nursery places), etc. The money is there, it's just going into the wrong pockets.

"Andwander
@Vbree.I lived opposite a nursery and observed every morning stressed out parents dragging crying,tired very very young children at 7am to nursery.it is a myth,they are better socialised.in Switzerland,chikdren go to Kindergarten when 5 and to schook with 6 years old.Much much less problems in school .If you read any professional report on child development,you find that early separation is a problem later for the child."

Separation as a lasting trauma isn't the sort of separation that lasts between 8 and 5 on weekdays. Attachment disorder is derived from a small child being separated from its primary caregiver(s) on à mort permanent basis, weeks or months at a time, with no notion of whether they will be returning. It's not the same AT ALL. I actually think it's more natural for children to have a multitude of caregivers - after all, when we all lived in tribes on the Savannah, do you really think childcare wasn't shared and each mother just cared for her own child?

I haven’t fully read all the replies since yesterday, but will go back and do so.

By the way, this was never meant to me an “Isn’t Britain great,” thread in any shape or form. I think Britain is a sick-society, increasingly polarised and I despair about most things here, frankly. That said, it’s another set of problems where I come from, as is generally the case. I realise how my title comes across, I just did it hastily in Pret after reading another thread. But not just that, I live in an area of London where quite a few Swedish expats tend to gravitate to because there is a school here. This also happens to be an area with a lot of SAHMs (many times more than the U.K. average I would say). All the expat mums are here through their husband’s job, rather than theirs and we’ve had conversations about differences.

The cost and quality of childcare in the U.K. is obviously appalling and it’s a scandal that those women (because it nearly always us women) working in nurseries are on close to MW. The idea of better paid nursery staff, who have had to do a degree, is something the U.K. should be aiming for.

I totally agree with better childcare enabling women to work if they want to / need to. I guess my concern is, when a culture is doing more than enabling, it’s prescribing (if that makes sense). Societies already prescribe when children should be starting school and it is what it is. We are conditioned to accept this and believe it’s best for our children - even in the UK when they’re wearing uniforms at 4. What I’m saying is, I would not want to live in a society where I’m conditioned to believe full-time daycare is the normal and natural choice for a child of 2. I’m sure it’s very good and high-quality etc etc, but so it should be and all this talk of forest play and this and that is just window-dressing (in my view). I think the parenting of young children is a highly personal choice between two parents and I wouldn’t want to feel that the state or societal norms are taking precedence over this. It sounds too prescriptive and straight-jacketed for my liking. Having said that, I take on board that ‘full time’ in Sweden may be very different to ‘full time’ in the U.K, so maybe it’s not as drastic as I was thinking. From conversation with Swedish mums here though (mainly from Stockholm) they have told me that, particularly in winter, babies are dropped off in the dark and collected in the dark and most people believe this is in the best interests of children and society. I’m not sure it is in all cases and does sounds quite a rigid way of life to me. That’s not to say I can’t see the advantages for working women though.

I would not want to live in a society where I’m conditioned to believe full-time daycare is the normal and natural choice for a child of 2.

Much better to live in a society where you are conditioned to believe paying for childcare, or choosing to be a SAHM is a luxury and if you can’t afford to do either, you shouldn’t have children.

From conversation with Swedish mums here though (mainly from Stockholm) they have told me that, particularly in winter, babies are dropped off in the dark and collected in the dark and most people believe this is in the best interests of children and society.

I’m afraid I don’t believe this is the conversation you had with those “Swedish mums”

Well you can believe whatever you wish. You don’t have to share my perspective in life.

Of course children are dropped off and collected in the dark. Even in the U.K. it gets dark early and more so in more northern countries like Sweden. My DT’s were dropped off at nursery around 8am and collected between 5 and 6. It was in their best interests as they received high quality childcare. If you don’t want to use childcare, no one is forcing you anymore than they do in Sweden.

From conversation with Swedish mums here though (mainly from Stockholm) they have told me that, particularly in winter, babies are dropped off in the dark and collected in the dark and most people believe this is in the best interests of children and society.

Well, that's half the year. The other half of the year, babies are dropped off and picked up in the light. This is because of Sweden's position on the planet and is due to a thing calle geography. Which we can't really change, unless you devise a means of dragging all the earth's countries back to roughly the Equator. We used to have this - it was called Pangaea.

None of your twaddle about 'dropping off babies in the dark' is in the least relevant to the argument and really it just makes you look a bit desperate for a point to make.

Oh I do hate it when it’s dark at 18:00.

Said no toddler ever.

@pointythings.if you would have read properly,I stated right in the beginning of my comment: of course things are never black and white! any common sense tells you that an early separation is not ideal.you can deny this of course

Anyone else find it interesting that @sw1v starts a thread about parenting in Sweden based purely on “facts” from another MN thread… yet on page 21 is now pulling multiple Swedish mothers that she knows in her area out of the bag? 🤣

@sw1v

I haven’t fully read all the replies since yesterday, but will go back and do so.

By the way, this was never meant to me an “Isn’t Britain great,” thread in any shape or form. I think Britain is a sick-society, increasingly polarised and I despair about most things here, frankly. That said, it’s another set of problems where I come from, as is generally the case. I realise how my title comes across, I just did it hastily in Pret after reading another thread. But not just that, I live in an area of London where quite a few Swedish expats tend to gravitate to because there is a school here. This also happens to be an area with a lot of SAHMs (many times more than the U.K. average I would say). All the expat mums are here through their husband’s job, rather than theirs and we’ve had conversations about differences.

The cost and quality of childcare in the U.K. is obviously appalling and it’s a scandal that those women (because it nearly always us women) working in nurseries are on close to MW. The idea of better paid nursery staff, who have had to do a degree, is something the U.K. should be aiming for.

I totally agree with better childcare enabling women to work if they want to / need to. I guess my concern is, when a culture is doing more than enabling, it’s prescribing (if that makes sense). Societies already prescribe when children should be starting school and it is what it is. We are conditioned to accept this and believe it’s best for our children - even in the UK when they’re wearing uniforms at 4. What I’m saying is, I would not want to live in a society where I’m conditioned to believe full-time daycare is the normal and natural choice for a child of 2. I’m sure it’s very good and high-quality etc etc, but so it should be and all this talk of forest play and this and that is just window-dressing (in my view). I think the parenting of young children is a highly personal choice between two parents and I wouldn’t want to feel that the state or societal norms are taking precedence over this. It sounds too prescriptive and straight-jacketed for my liking. Having said that, I take on board that ‘full time’ in Sweden may be very different to ‘full time’ in the U.K, so maybe it’s not as drastic as I was thinking. From conversation with Swedish mums here though (mainly from Stockholm) they have told me that, particularly in winter, babies are dropped off in the dark and collected in the dark and most people believe this is in the best interests of children and society. I’m not sure it is in all cases and does sounds quite a rigid way of life to me. That’s not to say I can’t see the advantages for working women though.

This might help to explain the dark.

Sweden is a country with big differences in daylight. In the far north, the sun does not set at all in June and there is darkness around the clock in January. However, in January in Stockholm the sun rises at 8:47 am and sets at 2:55 pm, while in July the sun rises at 3:40 am and sets 10:00 pm.

Again, a bit of reading/research helps before you make a pretty generalised and/or judgemental statement.

@sw1v

Well you can believe whatever you wish. You don’t have to share my perspective in life.

I’m interested though, @sw1v why you started this thread before chatting about it to your multiple Swedish mother friends. Who would have put you straight. Just… unusual.

France 99% of women go back to work at 13 weeks. Most use child minders v strict ratios.

The UK is different. Not better.

@EmmaOvary.I think your leap from how tribes bring up children and british mothers and fathers is quite astounding.there is nothing wrong with multiple carers.I personally would not be happy to drop of my 6 month old for 8 hours/5days a week to a nursery.Thank goodness,most of us have a choice and I am sure,we all make decisions,we believe is best four the child.

Oh fgs. I do live in an area with quite a lot of Swedish expats. There are also a lot of playgroup activities in the day and of course you meet other mums in this way. I had 4 children. We currently rent a house to a Swedish family and have done previously. So no, that wasn’t top of my mind yesterday as it’s not particularly recent, but of course you socialise with other mums out and about when you have young kids.