Go Dutch on Parenting?

In a recent article, "Why are Dutch children so happy?" children in the Netherlands were rated #1 in the world in "happiness", according to UNICEF's league table for child well-being (United States rated #20 of 21 industrialized nations). And though this may surprise you, they are NOT happy due to the way cool wooden shoes, windmills, cheese, or tulips :)

Just a few highlights of how The Netherlands compares to other industrialized countries. We'll start with the "good" stuff first:

• Less pressure is put on kids at school--teachers expect less of them. (I bet they accomplished this through F-CAT, C-CAT, tulip-CAT, whatever testing...ahem.)


• They are rich. Schooling is excellent. Good careers are not hard to find. (Okay, good. Of course, this is a lot easier with a country of 16.5 million versus, say 305 million in the US--and I guess if we went legal a lot of our kids could grow up and sell drugs legally too!)


• Low percentage of young mothers in the labor force, comparatively. Strong tendency for mothers to raise children--take a long time off work after children are born. (Cool.)


• Families are very open and communicative. (Good stuff!)


• Parents provide a highly protective, highly positive, caring family environment. ("Good things!")

Now things get controversial:

• Children almost rule the family--deciding what happens in the family. ...there can be a lack of balance between the happiness of the child and that of the parent, as the parent works harder to grant the wishes of the child." (hmm, maybe we in the US are going Dutch...)


• Liberal attitudes toward drinking, drugs and sex. These things are not serious matters to Dutch parents. (Hmmmm, I mean you put these things together--kids dancing in them wooden shoes, drugs and so on--well nothing but trouble will come of it.)

So what do you think about all of this? Comment below!

Here is the link to the article, dated 8/22/08: http://www.inform.kz/showarticle3.php?lang=eng&id=168856

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