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?

Do we not have higher rates of self-employment than many other countries?

Who?

@sw1v

Surely there must be a cap on the benefits the state sound would pay out though in terms of paternal leave?

The income cap is around £41,000 - so very high earners may not get 80%

@sw1v Yes, it’s 80% of your salary up to a max of around 1025kr per day for 390 of the days, and the other 90 days are 180kr a day flat rate for all.

Some employers pay extra on top of that, but not all.

@sw1v

I’m just saying for me, I doubt day centres would have made life easier. When you have 4 kids and nobody to help you drop them off and pick them up from multiple schools and day centre locations, it’s easier to just let them mill at home and occupy each other than do all that palaver and a job inbetween! It’s all very well to say, get your husband to do drop offs and take time out, but what if they’re overseas? Many are. Or they just can’t do it. It just sounds like more stress for the mums to me.

So your kids don't go to school? Or you don't pick them up?

There is also an anomaly in Sweden that you pay a lower tax rate if you work than if you dont

It’s has been nightmare at times getting my kids to and from school in London traffic and the fact they are in three different schools doesn’t help. Once it was 4 drop off because one school was across two different sites. Not to mention they have different holidays and term times, quite often. And different after school clubs and this and that. It’s shifting sands basically. Also, when one is sick they all tend to get it in some form one after the next and it can go on for weeks. But this is life.

I think it sounds more as if your life is quite stressful partly how you have organised it I guess. I do t think it has anything to do with you living in Sweden or not.

@sw1v

Loads of people don’t have an employer - they are self-employed, so if you take “your days” the only person who suffers is you.

That is the case in the UK. It is not the case in Sweden, clearly. Another way in which the Sweidish system is superior to ours.

My husband pays at least 45% tax on everything, plus corporation tax and other taxes and obviously his employees are entitled to maternity / paternity pay, holiday, sickness pay and everything, but I know full well if he was sick he would get zero as he’s self-employed. So he would just have to style it out. He’s never had holiday pay or sick pay or paternity pay in his life.

Your objection seems to come down to personal choice, which is bizarre as childcare choice is so limited in the UK. I think what you really mean is you feel uncomfortable that many mothers would opt to work if they had a viable way of doing this.

In the UK many families opt not to use childcare because they wouldn't earn £1200++ to enable this, double if you have two under 3.

I feel a bit raw about this currently. I'm TTC #2 and have delayed this by a year as we couldn't afford for 2 children to be in nursery and we couldn't afford for me not to work. I'm now struggling to concieve and the age gap is getting wider and wider. I'd love to be Swedish right now

Good for you OP. Thanks for making more people feel guilty who needed to go back to work for financial reasons. The day I put my 10 week old in nursery was the crappest day ever but my ex was a shit so I would have had no money if I didn’t work.

@sw1v

My husband pays at least 45% tax on everything, plus corporation tax and other taxes and obviously his employees are entitled to maternity / paternity pay, holiday, sickness pay and everything, but I know full well if he was sick he would get zero as he’s self-employed. So he would just have to style it out. He’s never had holiday pay or sick pay or paternity pay in his life.

In Sweden he would have holiday pay, sick pay and paternity pay. His staff's maternity/paternity pay would be paid for by the state.

Why do you think this is bad?

The self employed people I know have insurance for things like sickness. I would feel very vulnerable if no safety net and my DH was the only earner. Sounds like he runs a big business so really he needs to look into this ?

Self-employment is higher amongst disabled people. Most cant get sickness cover for their disability.
Insurers want to make money.

YellowHat - I’m sorry your ex was crap, but that’s not really what this debate is about.

Maybe I’m looking at all this too much through the lens if someone who has 4 children and a husband for whom the shared maternal / paternal leave thing would simply not have been viable. I don’t know many men for whom it would have been viable, to be honest, so that’s no doubt clouding my perspective. When you have 4 young children and a husband who is away a lot, you do what you need to do and so if there was a societal expectation that all these children should be in daycare so you can also be doing a job in those hours, I can’t see how that would have made life less stressful. It just would have added to my mental load and I would have been running round like a headless chicken even more! Life gets more structured when they start school anyway and that happens soon enough. I don’t know if I could have coped with 4 0-6 year-olds (practically on my own) with a job on top. Well, I would have had to cope at the end of the day, but it’s not something I would have chosen, put it that way. It’s different with one or two children I guess and a husband who is more flexible.

I worked full time from when DT’s were six months. I frequently had to travel abroad at little notice. DH is a GP and did 100% of nursery drop offs/ school drops offs when I was away. We shared when I was working in the U.K. We don’t have any family in the U.K. to provide any help.

Really the more you post OP, I feel like your main message is really nothing to do with Sweden, and more to do with the fact that you’ve not really had any help from your husband with the practicalities of day to day parenting because of his hectic work, and that you feel if you had to deal with multiple drop offs etc, and work, then it would be so stressful as to be unmanageable, so you choose to be a SAHM. This exact same scenario could play out in Sweden, the difference being that you couldn’t have the children in preschool even if you wanted to (with the exception of 15 hours once they are three, and that is mornings only and pickup before lunch at 11:00 ish in most places). That said, if the scenario were playing out in Sweden, there would be far far greater societal support and frameworks for your husband doing his fair share of the parenting - the parental leave, the VAB, the flexible working, and the fact that it’s completely normal for men to do this. Yes, women still do more than their fair share, but it’s changing. The issues you talk about as barriers within the Swedish system aren’t general or generalisable really, they’re specific to your family, which is fine as long as you’re clear on that in the points you make I guess

@sw1v

YellowHat - I’m sorry your ex was crap, but that’s not really what this debate is about.

Maybe I’m looking at all this too much through the lens if someone who has 4 children and a husband for whom the shared maternal / paternal leave thing would simply not have been viable. I don’t know many men for whom it would have been viable, to be honest, so that’s no doubt clouding my perspective. When you have 4 young children and a husband who is away a lot, you do what you need to do and so if there was a societal expectation that all these children should be in daycare so you can also be doing a job in those hours, I can’t see how that would have made life less stressful. It just would have added to my mental load and I would have been running round like a headless chicken even more! Life gets more structured when they start school anyway and that happens soon enough. I don’t know if I could have coped with 4 0-6 year-olds (practically on my own) with a job on top. Well, I would have had to cope at the end of the day, but it’s not something I would have chosen, put it that way. It’s different with one or two children I guess and a husband who is more flexible.

So your situation was stressful and difficult in the UK and you're extrapolating that to the Swedish system even though it's entirely different and you might've been in a different situation and even if not, you could've done exactly what you did in UK and stayed home?

Is this a "the grapes are too sour" situation?

@sw1v so what your post is really showing is that all of us, within certain parameters, make choices. You chose to have a larger than average family, 4 kids, which inevitably means the childcare demands will make working more difficult. Your dh has a job which makes being a 'hands on' parent more difficult. Again, these situations don't arise out of nowhere. Maybe he always had a demanding job which meant he'd never be around to do nursery runs. Maybe the situation kind of crept up because of other choices... One of the main reasons I returned to work (and this was back in the day when mums returned to work when our babies were 3 months old) was because I wanted dh and I to share the load of earning and doing childcare drop offs and pick ups. If id decided to stay at home, I can well imagine my dh, having the responsibility of being sole earner, would have chased promotions and ended up working longer hours for more money. Then if I'd decided further down the line that I did want a job, I'd be trapped in that situation of dh earning more money and having more work responsibilities so by default, I'd have ended up doing more of the childcare things.

I'm not saying all choices are available to everyone, that would be daft. But it's a fact that we all have some degree of agency over our lives.

Crying at this thread.

Forced childcare for babies….in Sweden

Xenophobia today

One year olds being swept up in a giant net by Swedish childcatcher

The dark

And to op for headline of the year, Thank god we don’t live in Sweden - not a phrase you often hear.

I nominate for classics.

And I’m moving to Sweden.

I’m not sure what you mean by ‘grapes are too sour’ or what the grapes are. I suppose, what I was concerned about, is that the Swedish system, though very enabling in one sense, could also be seen as quite prescriptive if you don’t fit the mould of the ‘typical’ family it was designed for. For instance, you might not want your 2 year-old in daycare for cultural reasons, personal reasons, or because you have a large family and its just easier not to bother. I suppose what I was wondering is if there is any perceived stigma to not having your children in daycare by 2, given that over 90% if children are by this age. Maybe that’s how I should have phrased the OP. In the same way as there would be a stigma to not having your children in school by 4/5 in the U.K and you would be seen as ‘opting out’ of the system, does ‘the system’ just kick in earlier in Sweden, (if you see what I mean)?

Also, I don’t know any men who would genuinely do ‘50/50’ if given the opportunity, so so find it hard to believe that women aren’t still doing most of the juggling in reality.

@sw1v But just because you don’t know any men who would do 50/50, doesn’t mean they don’t exist 😂 Honestly, it’s very very normal here. No, not every family does it that way, of course. But it happens, a lot, and it works.