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“If you want the American dream,” Miliband quipped at the conference, “go to Finland.”
to leave Finland or any other Nordic country behind and settle in America at the beginning of the twenty-first century was to experience an extraordinary—and extraordinarily harsh—form of travel backward in time.
a woman is meant to be more than a caretaker for her man and children. She ought to have her own purpose, her own will, her own career, including her own salary—as the British actress Helen Mirren once said, “The greatest gift every girl can have is economic independence.” I wanted to be a strong, intelligent, creative woman, not that girl who surrenders everything just for a guy.
modern life uproots the traditional support structures of society, most especially family and community, leaving insecurity and anxiety in their place. Back in the days when several generations lived together under one roof, sharing chores and domestic duties, surrounded by a tight-knit village where everyone knew one another and pitched in, a person could feel secure—at
authentic love and friendship are possible only between individuals who are
independent and equal.
citizens of the Nordic countries, the most important values in life are individual self-sufficiency and independence in relation to other members of the community.
A person who must depend on his or her fellow citizens is, like it or not, put in a position of being subservient and unequal.
“He who is in debt, who is beholden to others, or who requires the charity and kindness not only from strangers but also from his most intimate companions to get by, also becomes untrustworthy. . . . He becomes dishonest and inauthentic.”
the goal has been to free the individual from all forms of dependency within the family and in civil society:
All this creates relationships that are much freer of resentments, guilt, and baggage. In this sense, then, the Nordic theory of love is an intimate philosophy for how empowered individuals can engage in personal relationships in the modern age.
what really motivates Swedes and other Nordic citizens to support their system isn’t altruism—no one is that selfless—but self-interest.
freeing people from the shackles of financial and other sorts of dependency on one another enables them to be more caring toward each other, not less.
the leave begins at least five weeks before her due date. After she gives birth she then has three months to recover and breast-feed the baby,
Nordic societies have decided to free parents from this burden as it is good for all the individuals and institutions involved: employers, parents, and—not least, of course—the children themselves. Thanks to the Nordic theory of love, every parent in Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark has easy access to inexpensive, convenient day care, publicly subsidized and generally paid for on a sliding scale according to a family’s income. Access to day care begins as soon as parents complete their initial parental leaves, and day-care centers are regulated to ensure high quality. Privately run day
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In Sweden families receive 480 days of paid parental leave—approximately sixteen months—to use at any time they like before a child turns four, and part of these days can be saved and used anytime before the child turns twelve. The day care in Sweden costs even less than in Finland.
Nordic societies recognize that for individuals to give fully to their jobs as employees and as parents, they need time to rest, recuperate, and just enjoy each other’s company.
From a Nordic perspective a failure to ensure sufficient parental leave is nothing short of a violation of fundamental human rights—specifically, of a child’s basic human right to be cared for, to be nurtured, and to have parents who are able and present to do the job and do it well.
Supporting the psychological, physiological, and financial well-being of families through paid parental leaves, sick days, and genuinely recuperative vacations helps ensure that children grow into healthy and productive members of society rather than into prisoners, patients, or the unemployed.
Nordic societies work to ensure independence for the individual members involved. For fathers and mothers the result is to make the prospect of remaining engaged in the life of the family less difficult. This approach creates fewer strains between family members, because those individuals don’t have to make the sort of extreme sacrifices that can cause them to lose their independence, which so often forces families in America to fall apart—or stops them from forming in the first place.
I was surprised by how much parenting in America is still the woman’s responsibility.
Spouses avoid the dependencies and resentments that arise when one person pursues a career and controls the money, and the other person manages all the housework and the children.
when fathers as well as mothers take parental
leaves, the family dynamic changes for the better, with men taking a more active role in raising children.
Participating in one’s share of toilet training actually seems to forge closer bonds not just with one’s children but also with one’s fellow parent, leading to a happier and deeper relationship.
while America may have more supermoms, it turns out that asking women to become supermoms is not a solution. Instead women are just dropping out.
also can’t help wondering: Is this a smart way for a society in the twenty-first century to allocate its precious human resources? All this creativity in figuring out child care uses up vast amounts of everyone’s energy and brainpower, and steals away many hours and days that could be better spent. It always seems to me a surprising waste of time and potential.
The result is that Nordic women can simultaneously have careers and be moms at substantially higher rates than American women, and all without having to be supermoms.
women’s participation in the labor force is among the highest in the world; salary gaps between women and men are among the lowest in the world; and overall,
Continuing to live in the past is costing Americans dearly. American families pay in lost income, in stress, and in hardship—all of which spawn an enormous burden of anxiety that I could observe all around me, and that I started to suffer from myself soon after I settled on American shores.
The ILO has concluded that today a reasonable and humane minimum for paid maternity leave is fourteen weeks,
Family leave policies and affordable day care increase women’s participation in the labor force, help employers retain workers, and improve the health of women and children.
Any American corporate leader who wants to create healthier, happier, and more productive employees—and, crucially, retain them—should be lobbying for mandatory
the time and energy that you spend on your kids can be focused mostly on loving them, being with them, and raising them, not working so hard to
most Finnish municipalities offer first-graders a spot in a subsidized after-school club so that they don’t have to be alone until their parents get home from work.
“Real winners do not compete.”
the Finnish attitude toward competition—which is to say, avoiding it whenever possible—might
Although one spouse might want to change careers or become self-employed, nevertheless they’d agreed that he or she would stick with the job they had. The main reason, of course, was that the entire family relied on the health insurance that went with that job.
When one person has to put part of their own potential or dream on hold, or quash it altogether, while their spouse and children rely on that person’s sacrifice, everyone is being subtly held emotional hostage.
Nordic philosophy of using the tax code to achieve smart social goals by taxing practices or products that harm the environment or people’s health, such as gas-guzzling cars and alcohol.
The Nordic countries feel that they can’t afford to waste the potential of any of their children, no matter
Americans toil away on an endless treadmill, virtually as servants of their employers, told that this is the only way to stay competitive.
Copenhagen has set a goal of becoming carbon-neutral by as early as 2025, and has been installing an ultra-high-tech wireless network of smart streetlamps and traffic lights that themselves save energy and also help traffic move more efficiently, reducing fuel consumption. All this is good for the environment, the nonprofit public sector, and the private sector. By aiming to wean itself as a nation off fossil fuels before 2050, for example, Denmark
Sweden, meanwhile, has set itself the ambitious goal of completely eliminating deaths from traffic accidents, and in the process is reinventing city planning, road building, traffic rules, and the use of technology to make transport safer.
in Sweden where you can be relaxed, things work well, it’s not wrought with class issues, you’re not paying lots of money and isolating yourself with your little group, and you don’t have to insert your children into this highly competitive system so early—once you have children, those things do matter.
