Why Is Europe a Dirty Word?  - This column from Nicholas Kristoff in the New York Times is superficial but important because it recognizes all the ways that Europe works, in contrast to important ways the US does not.  I think most Americans would be surprised to learn how many people see the US as a sort of failed state.

Behind Every Great Woman – BusinessWeek wrote a cover story about the men who stay at home to support their successful wives.  The problem?  It’s about role reversal, not equality.  A very small step.

Homemaker Dad, Breadwinner Mom – In a blog entry at the New York Times, Nancy Folbre takes on my point above.   And she gets into detail about something my wife figured out the first time we did our taxes in the US.  The system is so biased towards a stay-at-home parent that it makes almost no sense for many spouses – men or women – to work.  In Sweden, of course, both spouses have to work, which is another kind of pressure, but at least a more fair one.  Why not support child care activities and others tax breaks that would allow everyone to go to work – while preserving choice – instead of penalizing mostly women who often do go back to work but for what comes out to insulting wages?

Pre-K Converts – Which brings me to this post from DadWagon, in which Nathan Thornburgh talks about the sad state, and ridiculous cost, of pre-K education in New York City, but also the whole US.   Excuse me while I go metaphorically kiss the stable, competitive, yet secure Swedish welfare state.

I was out last week with a friend, and he went into a convenience store to buy a subway ticket. And there I was, faced with this magazine rack.

Notice the Pappa Magazine in the top right. I wrote about Pappa last month, and even though I noticed its minor buzz online, I never thought it would actually get such major play on newsstands.

How far away do you think the first glossy “Daddy” magazine is in the US? 20, 30 years?

Though it could be windy.

Mostly glorious, especially in January.

And now back to this.  That poor kid falling down says it all.  Except that my kids had just spent 20 minutes falling down on purpose and screaming with laughter about it.  So all is not gloomy when you get fresh snow on your return from the beach …

So I complained about the lack of play areas for kids at airports. But I had never been to Seattle, where they have this heaven for small children. We had a four hour layover and it saved us.

So between Stockholm and Seattle, we encountered two wonderful playgrounds.

Which leaves no excuses for all the other slackers. And, yes, I am looking at you Oakland.

We stumbled upon on our first play area in Salt Lake City a few years ago, and it was like a gift from the heavens, with a big choir singing and everything.  Since then, we discovered a shabby one in Chicago, which likely saved us and hundreds of people on a series of airplanes from a toddler meltdown.

Seriously, why does not every airport have play areas?  All people do is complain about small kids on planes.  Why not give them a place to have fun before they get on board.  Why not get them out of the waiting areas?

A few weeks ago, in Stockholm, E and I wondered why the Stockholm airport had no play area.   It seemed thoughtless and odd.

Then we  found this, based on the work of a beloved early 20th-century children’s book illustrator Elsa Beskow:

Seriously, you could charge for this collaboration with Junibacken, a cool children’s museum in Stockholm, which opened in 2011.  It could be an attraction.  We might come early next time around.

Why is this sort of thing so hard?

Let us play, let us play, let us play.

You read the first half about a dad out with his son, and then you flip it over and read about a mom out with her daughter.  They meet in the living room in the middle.

And you know what strikes me, besides the cool gimmick?  That the Dad is equal to the Mom.  Not just in having half a book, but in the tone and substance of the book.  He comforts his son when he gets hurt, helps him deal with fears and just in general was competent to deal with the average weekend outing.

And the mom?  She is basically the same, not scared of lions at the zoo and that sort of thing.

If a book like this came out today, I would praise it for being so forward thinking on gender stereotypes.

Then I just read a post at Dadding, the fatherhood blog at Babble, on LEGO advertising and how the toys used to be for boys and girls but somehow became only for boys.

And I think about how in Sweden the girls toys are getting pinker and girlier, without even any of the middle ground that American girls get (clothes and attitudes are still different there, yes).

Some pretty sad backsliding.

We went to a park today here in northern California.  And it was filled with dads.  And it was filled Americans.  And, even though this happens every time we come to California, or I hang out with American dads in Sweden, it dawned on me that I am not special at all.

I mean, I’m sure I’m special and unique and will get a trophy at some point.  But  it is a good reminder to see all these guys taking care of their kids, to see all these parents talking like I do and playing like I do.

It’s not that American parenting is better.  It’s not.  It’s not worse either.

And it is both good and bad to feel part of the crowd.

It was good today.

Go figure.  Must be a parent thing.

Anyway, the arm was manageable – and I will stop carrying him at some point – until I got a smartphone.  It turns out that I hold the smartphone at an angle that matches my child-carrying one.

So after I have checked my e-mail or surfed the web or texted someone, my arm hurts even more than it does when carrying Baby B.

Maybe it’s a message to disconnect …

But we did have fun on New Year’s Eve, watching balloons drop with Snoopy at the Peanuts museum and then hanging out in the dunes and on the beach on a perfect Sonoma winter day.

And there was also a wedding party that walked by …

You would think I would jump at the whole hot “Dark Sweden” vibe.  But I have a real ambivalence about the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson.

Especially when people, including Larsson, compare his heroine, Lisbeth Salander, with the classic Swedish heroine Pippi Longstocking.

I wrote a post about it at Double X at Slate a few weeks ago:

Yes, both characters do spring from the same Swedish/Western cultural well, and both have no mother to speak of and missing fathers that turn up with unforeseen consequences. But Larsson claimed that Lisbeth is Pippi grown up in the real world, instead of that this is what happens to his Pippi in his alternate universe. This isn’t what Lindgren intended.

There was one point that got cut in editing that was actually the inspiration for the whole post.

And here it is:

But Lindgren created a heroine out of the work of Swiss philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau – natural, unspoiled, resilient – while Larsson crafted a world reflecting the popular perception of English philosopher Thomas Hobbes – all trauma, betrayal and destruction.