a week with grandma in daddyland

Thwarted by a volcano, my intrepid mother made her way to Daddyland just a week later, braving the suddenly clear skies over Iceland to arrive in a cold Swedish spring.

And also to find out that the baby had been throwing up all night.  He stayed sick for days.  He cried a lot.  He did not want to be held. Then E got sick too.

But we had fun anyway.

It is wonderful to have grandma here.  NK stays home and relaxes.  And the quiet spell of parental leave in a foreign city is broken.  We went to far away parks and ate hot dogs and popsicles.  We went into Stockholm and all sat in the German church while NK “read” a really heavy book she lugged along.  We all rode this really cool tire swing/slide that many Swedish parks have.  Baby B cried while I got on the tire and then laughed with glee during the ride with me.  Then he cried while I got on the tire.  Then laughed.  Then cried.  Then laughed.

That is my son.

The visit does not make me yearn for America, only because America is so spread out, or at least our life and family are.  And I cannot wish that we had three generations all living in the same small town because that is such an impossibility – if you knew my family.

But it does make me look forward to one day living on a beach in California a short-enough drive from my parents and my sister and whatever friends are still around the Bay Area.

For now, though, Daddyland is way cool.   And Baby B thinks so too.  After a rough morning, we took his sister to preschool, came home and he sat on the couch and wanted me to tickle the back of his neck with my beard.

And we laughed.

And he slept.

And now I am going to sleep too.

fatherhood changing everywhere. it’s just easier on paternity leave in sweden

Fatherhood is changing, and not just in Sweden.  I can’t find it, but I was reading a research paper online that noted that in all “post-industrial” societies, dads were getting more involved.  It makes sense.  If men and women do the same jobs, they should do the same things at home.

And it is happening in the U.S.  From Newsweek, by way of MomsRising:

Millennial fathers—those under 29—spend an average of 4.3 hours per workday with their kids, which is almost double that of their counterparts in 1977. A Families and Work Institute report found that these young dads are actually now spending more time each day with children under 13 than mothers between the ages of 29 and 42 are with their own. Which is staggering.

Of course, there is a long way to go.  Even in Sweden inequality reigns, especially after the kids start daycare.  Only 51 percent of Swedish women with kids under 7 work full time.  92 percent of dads do. (In Sweden, you have the legal right to go down to 75 percent if you have kids under 7)

Ouch.  Makes me proud to have been in the 8 percent.

But, still, widespread paternity leave helps, for apparently American men are now more conflicted than women over the work-life balance.  Maybe because it is a new problem?  More from Newsweek:

Unfortunately, sharing the load can mean sharing the misery, too. Astonishingly, married men are now feeling more torn over balancing work and family than their wives are. Joan Williams, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings, found that in 2008, 59 percent of employed fathers in dual-earner families said they suffered work-family conflict, up from 35 percent in 1977.

The number of women in two-income families who reported feeling conflicted increased by 5 percent over the same period, to 45 percent. (Williams says women who feel conflicted change their schedules, despite damage to their careers; men try to avoid this, and hence feel worse.) Men who stay home are in the minority, but overall, Williams says, “norms have shifted. Taking care of a child is now part of what it means to be a father.”

getting the best out of the welfare state and the american state (whatever that is)

Being an international family is not always easy.  You always live far from one set of family and friends, and one partner is always an immigrant, an outsider trying to fit in.

But talk about options.  Two cultures, two systems, two languages to choose from.

And you cannot do much better – if you are at least middle class, which we are, than Sweden and America – the welfare state and the richest country in the world.

It is almost embarrassing, how you can plan your life.  I was talking to an American a couple weeks ago, and he told me about a family he knew.  He almost whispered it.

The family moved to Sweden when they had kids.  Got all the parental leave, the cheap high quality child care, the money for your kids (yep, the swedish state gives each kid a couple hundred bucks a month).

Then they moved to America.  Lower taxes, more money, big house, fast track careers.

Oh, and the sun.  How could I forget the strong American sun, the escape from winters that grind your soul into a fine powder.

Then they sent their kids to college in Sweden.  F0r free.

The story ends there, but if they stay true to form, this couple will retire to Sweden for the health care and other benefits and winter in Spain or Florida …

The guy telling me the story sort of shrugged with embarrassment.  I might have smiled ruefully.

Do we dare game the system so?

For I am on paternity leave but I certainly have not paid Swedish taxes my whole life.  And if we ever move back to America, I will stop paying those Swedish taxes.

And when they hit 18, I am sure I will not stop my kids from studying in Sweden.

Just the thought makes me feel guilty.  But E tells me to get over it.  She has been in the system the whole time, she says.   Our kids are Swedish.  They might live in Sweden.

And, really, we would never move just to milk a system – either here or there.  We are about other things.

But what a perk …

surprised by the competence of dads in sweden

I am working on a magazine pitch based on my paternity leave.  Here is a section that did not make it, but that I think gets an important point across:

I expected great physical comedy in Daddyland – fathers covered with poop, babies covered with motor oil, that sort of thing.  But Swedish dads are not half as incompetent – or maybe it is self-deprecating – as American ones, who seem to revel in their clumsiness and bumbling stereotype.  Swedes have been subject to four decades of government propaganda that Dad is to be not only involved emotionally with his family, but also competent, both at child rearing and housekeeping.

And it worked, as Swedish men have developed what one researcher calls “child-centered masculinity.” This same shift is happening in the U.S. in a herky jerky small kind of way.  But like most things in the welfare state, the transition in Sweden is gentler (and more effective), if saddled with a slew of bureaucratic rules.

wives pay price for workaholic men, paternity leave means less divorce

You want a good window into the work/life souls of the U.S. and Sweden?

Come with me.

An old high school classmate tipped me off to a new Cornell study.  It is titled: Reinforcing Separate Spheres: The Effect of Spousal Overwork on Men’s and Women’s Employment in Dual-Earner Households.

What does that mean?  That the more hours an American man works, the more sacrifices his wife makes.  The following quote from the author is from a press release on the study:

As long work-hours introduce conflict between work and family into many dual-earner families, couples often resolve conflict in ways that prioritize husbands’ careers. Having a husband who works long hours significantly increases a woman’s likelihood of quitting, while having a wife who works long hours does not affect a man’s likelihood of quitting.

Now here is a Swedish doctoral dissertation from 2002.  What does it say about paternity leave? (which, by definition, is the opposite of being a workaholic)

It says that if a man takes paternity leave, that couple is less likely to divorce, and they are more likely to have more children.  From a newspaper article on the dissertation (another rough Google translation job):

In families where the father had parental leave with the first child, the likelihood of divorce is almost 30 percent lower than in families where the father has not been on parental leave, according to a doctoral thesis by Livia Oláh at the Department of Sociology at Stockholm University.

“I believe that women in Sweden have learned to make demands. They have lived with gender ideology since the late 60s, ” Olah said when the thesis was released.

Yes, there are many workaholic Swedes, and, yes, there are millions of American dads that prioritize their family.  But, still, I am making a broader point, and I think it is one that holds true.

my nomination for the president of Daddyland

I hereby nominate Gudrun Schyman as the president of Daddyland.

Yes, a woman.

She  is the head of the Feminist Initiative here in Sweden, the former head of the Left Party, now pushing a purely feminist agenda and running – unsuccessfully – for a seat in parliament.

Now Schyman seems to be a polarizing figure in Sweden (allegations of tax fraud will do that), and I want her as the president of Daddyland, not as the prime minister of the whole country.  But I met her once in a coffee shop, and she seemed very nice, and she has a goofy flair in the media that I appreciate in Sweden (Read her blog here).  I also find it hard to argue with one single point of the Feminist Initiative platform, and wanted to highlight the feminist thing, because that is the hidden truth behind all these guys here getting religion on the baby front.

The feminists pushed them into it.  Swedish men were not clamoring for paternity leave.  Many took it happily, it seems.  But there was no male groundswell, even if male politicians finalized the rule changes that made widespread paternity leave a reality.

This is also the unspoken pretext behind all the American daddy blogs I’ve started reading – the guys hide it well behind cool demeanors and snappy attitudes, but they would never – in a million years – be writing a daddy blog without the feminist movement.  I mean, if women can prove they can hold their own in “male” society, then why can’t men nurture, take care of a toddler?

Regardless of how it happened, in Sweden, this bit of social engineering has proved a success, at least to judge by the nine guys I saw at open preschool this afternoon – from the buffed bald guy with the soul patch to the overweight man with greasy hair in a stained golf shirt.

Both their kids looked just fine, by the way.

Anyway, this “feminist” transition in child care has made for a smoother ride here than in the U.S.  Here, guys get to enter Daddyland in small chunks, get their feet wet, and then get back to work.  In America, you get laid off and then, bam!, you go from workaholic to stay at home dad.

I also wrote a little about feminism recently at The Faster Times.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go campaign for Gudrun …

the long-lasting impacts of paternity leave in Sweden

A father only lives in Daddyland for a short while – a couple weeks to maybe a year.  But the impact of that sojourn echoes through the ensuing years of parenthood.

For example, E threw out her back this weekend.  Badly.

And we all did fine.  There was no dread.  No, “Oh my god, Daddy is in charge, what will become of us!?!?” fear in the children.  And apartment is no more of a wreck than it usually is after a weekend, the kids did not live on old food dropped under the table.

Now, I am on paternity leave now.   So this would be expected, as I am the one at home.  But it will be the same next year or the year after, when I am back at work, when E is back at work.

I have proven myself to everyone.  I have built up a homemaking, stay at home dad competence.

So Mommy can go away.  Mommy can get hurt.  And the world will not end.

I would like to think this would have been true if I had never spent time in Daddyland.  I had full faith in my capabilities when I was a “normal” working Dad, both in the U.S. and in Sweden.

But it is different.  Then it was potential or spot duty.  There is an adjustment.  Now there is not.

That said, do I hope her back gets better by next weekend …