Best country to be a Mum? - Norway

[northerner]

According to the Seventh Annual Mother?s Index, Norway is one of the top spots for moms!

With free healthcare for children seven and under - and paid maternity leave that lasts a year - this Scandanavian paradise makes sure family comes first.

?It?s a very family oriented society and the family is very important to the government,? says Trine Grung, a mother of two, who calls Oslo, Norway, home.

Along with extended maternity leave - which can be divided between a husband and wife - moms and dads each get 10 days off with pay to take care of their kids if they get sick! Plus, during the first few years, families can get about $100 a month from the government to help pay nanny costs.

If your day care provider falls through? No problem! Trine says it?s okay to take the kids to work for a day or two.

Norway also encourages moms to breast-feed, and there are even cafés designed for nursing moms. ?We don?t flash the boob out in the cafe, but you can be discreet. Everybody does it,? she says. And Trine means everybody - 99 percent of Norwegian moms breast-feed!

Lets all move to Norway then...

Sounds great, lets face it most places are better to bring up a family than England.

So when the kids are 8 they have to pay for healthcare? Doesn't sound ideal to me!

Then rest sounds nice though

I'm not surprised!

sounds great

There must be something wrong with Norway.

High rates of alcoholism? Or is that just Sweden? Stary people? Or is that just Finland? Marauding Vikings? Come on people, surely there's something?

Stary people???

I am going to finland soon, will I be stared at?

Ooh yes, one of my friends is half-Finnish and she says you can't go anywhere without being stared at. She's never sure if it's absent-mindedness or that she's utterly fascinating.

Report back, won't you?

I understand my Norwegian uncle was in some kind of charity fundraising Viking re-enactment society, so there may be the odd marauding Viking. But why ever would anyone be perturbed by that .

yes and the TAXES???

yes scandawegian education is poor i have heard from a friend who has done reserach in it fo an internat org

LOL

The cold weather is a good one

taxes are there for a reason, I suppose.

My BIL and SIL lived in Stavanger for a while (He works for NATO) and we went to visit - I thought it was an amazing place for families. Very clean and crime low and they get 4 bins - yes 4!!! for recylcling purposes. Beautiful country too and the houses! How I yearn for a norwegian house.

we get 4 bins.

so what is the etiquette?

Do I stare back or just hide behind my book?

get youme marimekko in filand

See NZ isn't on there - Australia ranks highly though.
NZ was a fab place to have a baby - beats the pants off being pregnant and nursing in the UK
IMO

I worked in Norway for 6 short months years ago and loved it. Everything was very expensive but the standard of living was so much higher that it was sort of acceptable.

There is a high suicide and alcoholism rate though and they do have a strange food relationship with fish, rollmops anyone? Oh and they hunt whales. Apart from that it is lovely!

mind you that 9 cold months with few hours of light wouldn't do much to lift up my mood...

Personally I would have a baby in Finland if I could, they get an amazing layette all courtesy of the state, and it comes in a box that double as a crib! When I say layette it includes various snowsuits suchlike, you would have nothing to buy except nappies. Viva Scandinavia!

From Finland to Sweden for the maternity/parental leave of course.

The taxes are onerous - particularly since I personally paid them but never benefited from them in Sweden - but such is life. You can't have that kind of social support without coughing up.