is socialized more civil(ized)?

As my husband and I find ourselves obsessing about where we want to live, be it in the US or Norway (or maybe somewhere entirely different, like the Mediterranean), a huge issue is where can we get good and affordable daycare and school for our daughter who's now close to 21 months.

In the US, daycare is much more expensive than in Norway, at least till the child is ready for preschool at age three. In Norway, daycare is relatively cheap and all children age one and up are guaranteed a spot.

But in Norway, the quality of daycares doesn't always measure up to the quality of daycares in the US. Norwegian schools rate lower than American schools.

But on this international women's day, the question I'm really struggling with, is what is best for mama?

I grew up in Norway and took for granted one year of paid parental leave in conjunction with the birth or adoption of a child, as well as subsidized daycare from the child was one. I found the lack of paid parental leave in the US abhorrent (and I still do), and the high cost of daycares an appalling obstacle to the progress of gender equality. Often it makes more sense financially for one of the parents to stay home and take care of the child, because this parent's salary--typically the mother's--would not or just barely make up for the cost of daycare. In other words, the lack of affordable daycare reinforces traditional gender roles in the US.

On the other extreme, there is in Norway a growing support for enforced equal sharing of the parental leave. This troubles me too. Because realistically, how well can a mother continue to breastfeed the child through his or her first year of life if she were to go back to work after only half a year? Certainly, it can be done (by some), but by the majority?

The World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding up to two years or beyond. This has been my choice. Could I have done it if I had to leave home for work everyday? Certainly not with my daughter's frequent nursing pattern, every two hour. I'm lucky that I can have half the day to work on my own writing at home, and thus be available to my child when she needs me.

Attachment parenting is a related key issue. Psychologists point out the importance of nurturing attached relationships with the child in his or her first two to three years of life between the child and primary caretakers, not to be reduced to parents only, but also including relatives, friends, even hired caretakers that are able to dedicate focused care and attention to the child, building a sense of strong secure bonds for the child.

Norwegian journalist Simen Tveitereid caused quite the uproar in Norway with his book Hva skal vi med barn? (2008) where he asks why we have children if we're not up for the task to take care of them ourselves, but instead drop them off in understaffed or poorly staffed daycares when what they really need is developing a few attached relationships. Critics admonished Tveitereid for making parents feel badly about the way they raise their children. If this is tantamount to saying that if your thoughts and findings could cause others to second guess and feel guilty about heir choices, you should keep what you've found to yourself, it comes dangerously close to censorship. 

I never questioned the Norwegian model till I became a parent and found myself comparing and contrasting different approaches to parenting in different cultures.

In the US, with our modest means, my husband and I could probably not afford daycare without me getting a full time job, which I'm unwilling to take on, because I want to be available to our daughter for at least half the day. So in a sense we don't have a real choice here.  Perhaps we could make it if my husband has a full time job and I a part time job, but when then would I write, or he? And what would we do if we have another child?

In Norway, we could possibly make it on one salary while having our child in daycare for half the day (while paying for full time daycare: half day daycare is not an option, but technically we would be able to pick up our child earlier). I find myself wondering though, how this arrangement would be encountered, how would I be perceived? A reactionary old-fashioned mama? A goner? Someone who doesn't know what's best for her?

In response to this, I would argue that in Norway where gender equality is so highly valued, mothers are socialized to return to full time work when the child is one. This seems to be especially true for educated middle class mothers (stay-at-home moms in Norway can mainly be found among the labor or upper classes).

In 1998, the Norwegian government instituted a monthly cash support to those parents who decide not to have their child between ages one and three in daycare. The cash support has been fiercely attacked for reinforcing traditional gender roles; class differences (when parents end up spending the money to hire nannies or au pair students); and cultural differences (seeing that often the moms that take advantage of it, tend to be immigrants from non-Westernized countries). It's been cut several times and may soon be discontinued.

In The Mask of Motherhood, Susan Maushart recommends both parents work part time in order to support greater gender equality and mutual understanding between the parents; allowing for the child to draw on each parent's individual skills; and for both parents to nurture attached relationships with the child. Maushart recognizes that in the US at least, this remains an impractical solutions: there are not many actual half time jobs, and typically only full time jobs provide benefits, such as health care, which in Norway is universal, making this a more realistic financial alternative there. However, aside from the occasional parole calling for six-hour workdays for all, it's not been on the agenda in Norway, not the way Maushart envisions it, a scenario that definitely appeals to me.