From the start, the author judges the Americans as
over-anxious, and blames the anxiety on parents who micromanage their
children’s lives. The anxious-parent micromanagement stresses the parents, and
teaches the kids nothing about taking care of themselves. They’ll spend
fortunes on tutors (and even do their kids’ homework) to get them into top
colleges, stress themselves to pay for it, and four years later they have less
money and some kids who can’t support themselves. But in Scandinavia, things
are a wee bit different; college is free, kids are expected to move out at age
18, and the parents don’t stress.
The author quotes
a US-educated Swedish academic named Lars Tradaigh on several issues. The first
one is financial aid for college – which in the USA requires you to state your
parents’ income – and that is alien to Scandinavia. In Sweden, your parents are
no longer obligated to support you after age 18, so the idea of your parents’
income being an issue is ridiculous. The second issue is elder care, which
looks bleak, since the average American can’t afford it. Look at it in terms of
economics; parents today are supporting their grown children (the sandwich
generation) so they can’t possibly support an aged relative as well. In Sweden,
the state pays for the health care and nursing, and that’s it. The children are
expected to take their elders for walks, talk to them, do stuff with them.
Social workers can’t do that.
It’s the same
thing with childcare in Finland. The government provides free maternity leave
and daycare, so the parents are not stressed about taking care of the children.
But this would be impossible here in the USA, for a million reasons. First, the
USA has a teenage pregnancy problem, which Scandinavia does not. Not only that,
but all over the country you find women with lots of kids by different men, and
they’re on welfare their whole lives. Scandinavia has a low birthrate and no
teen pregnancy, so they’re not swamped with the bills. Then there’s another
great American problem to deal with; crack babies, and the kids with FAS. Few
kids in Scandinavia are born addicted to drugs, so all those Nordic teachers
aren’t struggling to retarded students. Lastly, the USA has a titanic defense
budget, and that cuts into what we can spend on daycare. As for the government
providing free housing so 18 year old kids can live on their own, forget it.
You’d have nonstop partying and trips to the ER.
There is one Nordic
practice that can work, and that’s a school curriculum involving hikes. In
Sweden, the children are taken into the woods, given a compass, and told to
find their way back. They’ll do this in all weathers, rain or shine, and their
motto is “there is no bad weather, only inadequate clothing.” The kids learn to
be self-reliant, solve problems on their own, and get along without their
parents. Maybe the US problem is that we’re desperate for the kids to achieve
what does not exist? Look at the schools, with their uniforms (the kids look
sloppy anyway) and the dress codes (that lead to conflicts.) Do truckers have
dress codes? What about cab drivers? Do electricians wear neckties? Do most NYC
teachers wear neckties? The answer is usually no. So why make kids dress up for
school? It’s part of the spectrum, of Americans forcing useless things on their
kids, and it’s all because of paranoia.
Unfortunately, the
majority of Scandinavia’s ways can’t work in the USA because…..well I guess
everything here is different. Finland has a high number of percentage of women
legislators, and we have few. Norway has a tiny defense budget, ours is
astronomical. Denmark has no teenage pregnancy, but we certainly do, and it’s a
drain on our nation. Scandinavia has an anything-goes attitude towards sexuality,
no censorship, and they’re racially homogenous. True, they have free college,
but it’s only for kids that qualify, and they do have vocational training
(which most US schools have gotten rid of.) The reason they can afford to have
free college is that you don’t attend if your grades are no good. Here in the
USA, any idiot can go to community college, even if they can barely read.
I’d love to see
the forest hikes in US schools. Maybe if we’re less paranoid about lawsuits, we
might see it in this lifetime.
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