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Medlemmar i Haro skriver nu en blogg tillsammans, och kommenterar aktuella händelser och artiklar.
Läs bloggen!
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Läs de senaste krönikorna från våra duktiga haroskribenter
Madeleine Wallin
Viktoria Klint
Leif Stille
Karin Yngman
Gästkrönikör:
Katarina Lindve
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...för och emot Vårdnadsbidraget!
För, Haro´s Jonas Himmelstrand
För, Kristdemokraterna
Emot, Arbetarrörelsens Tankesmedja
Emot, Socialdemokraterna |
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Haro på Familyplatforms sista möte i Bryssel 4-5 november 2010
The Future of Motherhood in Sweden
Statement at the Familyplatform Conference,
Brussels November 4-5, 2010
by Madeleine Wallin, President of Haro, Sweden
My name is Madeleine Wallin and I am the president of Haro, a Swedish organisation working for Freedom of choice, Equality and Parenthood, and I am a member of the Advisory Board of Familyplatform.
In the report from the Lisbon conference it was stated that:
“Given the fact that time spent on unpaid work is significantly higher for women/mothers than for men/fathers, a good model of gender equality should remunerate the unpaid childcare work which is mostly done by women/mothers.”
Once we accept that men and women in reality have different, but equally important, parental roles especially during the first years of a child’s life, and accept that men and women have different life priorities based on deep inner convictions, then we can address the issues of gender equality and families in more constructive ways. Sweden has pushed gender equality to its extreme, without taken into account the needs and wishes from women, men and children. There are many lessons to be learned from this, and today even Sweden is changing from its own model.
The current situation in Sweden for mothers is difficult and has been so for many years. Attitudes, norms and invisible rules creates a population who do things by routine rather than from inner wishes leading to responsibility and individuality. Individuality has become superficial rather than based on the individuals unique personality.
Motherhood has had no value in the strong Swedish feminist movement and children have been neglected. Politicians and media often avoid the issues. They fear that uncomfortable feelings may surface if media discuss the feelings which parents have about sending an 18 month old child to day care.
Generally speaking day care is seen as more important than mothers and fathers, even among parents, and this is a consequence of the gender equality ambitions and strong a government bias toward day care. The experiences you get by raising children is not valued in Sweden today, even though the skills you attain are the same as requested in many jobs.
But there are signs of change in Sweden. Our new centre-right government has a special Minister for Children, Mrs Maria Larsson. Presenting herself in her new position she put a great deal of emphasis on parents and their key role and responsibility for their children. Also gender equality is given less emphasis and will sort under the Ministry of Education. Individualising parental leave, giving half to the mother and half to the father with no possibility of exchange, has been discussed intensely in later years with strong feminist support. However, the parties most in favour of this lost in the election this year. Instead the centre-right government has moved towards more options on how to use parental leave, including the possibility for both the mother and the father to simultaneously be at home with their child in the beginning.
For many years polls have shown that Swedish parents want to spend more time with their children for longer periods than just parental leave and that they do not want an individualised parental leave. The current political development shows some promise that the government may finally listen to this opinion.
This development is especially interesting as Sweden has practised a rather extreme policy of comprehensive day care with a strong bias towards feminism and gender equality for many decades, a policy which has never fully gained the acceptance of the general public. This fact seems to finally have hit home to the government, if even ever so slightly.
The Swedish family model is one of the biggest social experiments in the history of democracy. In my organisation Haro we have a strong opinion that this model has to be studied critically as to its effects on child development, parental health, parenting quality and educational results. So far there is no relevant research on this done in Sweden. The developmental statistics of the last three decades of comprehensive day care are not promising, especially taking into account the very high material living standard and social equality in Sweden. We expect Sweden to eventually take a leap into a whole new recognition of motherhood, parenthood, childhood and family, and its key role in a healthy society.
Finally I end with a statement given to me by Sweden's first Minister of Children, Mrs. Maria Larsson
"Every child in Europe has a right to grow up in a safe and caring environment. This is essential for the development of prosperity in Europe. To give the family the best possible conditions and to support parents in their crucial role is a good way to achieve this. Children which grow up with loving and caring parents will develop their ability to show solidarity and responsibility. Therefore families need political support and to have the right to choose how to raise their children. "
Madeleine Wallin
madeleine.wallin@haro.se
www.haro.se
Family research topics – a Swedish outlook
Statement by Jonas Himmelstrand for Familyplatform conferece Brussel 4-5 november 2010
My name is Jonas Himmelstrand. During the last seven years I have been interested in Swedish family policies and its outcomes. I published a book on the subject in 2007. A condensed English version will be published next year. I am involved in the Familyplatform project through being a board member of the Swedish family organisation Haro.
The Familyplatform project has gathered much data on family well-being. What is now needed, in my opinion, is a theory to interpret this data. This needs a multi-disciplinary approach which among other disciplines includes attachment theory, developmental psychology and neuroscience.
I will suggest a few such research themes on the key issue of parent-child relationships. But first a few words on Sweden.
Sweden is the leader of modern family policies focusing on gender equality, a comprehensive day care scheme beginning at age one, and the full-time dual-earner household. But the results are not all positive. The psychological health of Swedish youth is deteriorating faster than in comparable countries. The rates of long-term sick leave and early retirement of middle-age Swedish women are among the highest in Europe. The quality of parenthood, also in well to-do families, have plummeted. Both the behavioural and educational results of our schools have fallen sharply during the last decades, from a top position to being merely average. Developmental science suggests several possible links between these symptoms and the long daily separations between parents and especially small children – intrinsic in the Swedish family model.
I here suggest four key topics for multidisciplinary research inspired by the situation in Sweden:
1) Consequences of high exposure to day care from an early age
Present research suggests positive correlations, 1) between cognitive development and high quality day care, and, 2) between behaviour problems and high quantity of day care. The improved cognitive development could according to some sources in part be a research error, not taking the attachment factor between researcher and child into account. New research also indicates that some children are significantly more sensitive than others. This is called the orchid-hypothesis and it suggests that these children are too delicate to thrive in day care, and in normal school settings, while they will excel above others in more sensitive settings. They are like orchids, highly sensitive but spectacularly beautiful if given the right care. All in all there is a mounting evidence that day care is not beneficial to all children, especially in the first three years of life.
2) How do children learn and grow – through pedagogics or relationships?
Studies of the growing global homeschooling phenomena – which now covers 3% of all American school children – show that children educated by their parents at home achieve equal or higher results than school, and that their social development is excellent. Typically these children have never attended day care either. How can this be? Developmental science suggests that the relationship with the tutor is more important than the educational method. This would explain why the family setting, focusing on the relationship in a safe setting, can be more successful than day care and school, focusing on pedagogics.
3) Is high-quality day care worth to be subsidised?
Three top Swedish experts recently criticised the quality of Swedish day care, arguing it could be detrimental to some children, especially at younger ages. Still the average cost of Swedish day care today exceeds 15000 euros per child and year, which is more than 90% subsidised. True high quality care could cost 20000-25000 euros per child and year. This may actually approach the cost of an extended parental leave.
4) Family relationships versus gender equality
Contemporary gender equality may be in conflict the needs of families and children. Children seem to need their parents – and in the first year of life, their mother – to a higher degree than current family policies account for. Gender equality needs to take into account the importance of parenthood, and during the early years, motherhood.
My conclusion
We need to know more about the relationship aspect of the well-being of families, and of the outcomes for children. The Swedish model needs to be approached with caution, and to be subject to a serious study.
Jonas Himmelstrand
jonas@mireja.org
Statement with sources can be found at: http://www.mireja.org/articles.lasso
The Swedish family organisation Haro has a website at: http://www.haro.se
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