Summer In Finland

So it's the middle of October and though summer has long come and gone in Finland I am finally writing this post which I meant to do since June! The summers in Finland are very short, basically only two months. That may be why Finns seem to worship the sun in the summer and are always outside. People walk around half naked already at 19 degrees centigrade! You will sometimes spot young women in pum pum shorts with a little of their butt cheek on view.

Finns who are usually quiet and somber during the summer are a bit more outgoing and smiling. I am sure it has to do with the sun. 

In the summer, on good-weather days, the parks are all full. There is always some happening in the city. There are many concerts and festivals and many of them are free. Everyone is always grilling, at home or in the park. It's the only time of year my husband cooks regularly because that's when he can grill. People try to find activities to do which would require going outdoors. Going to the beach, drinking in the park, fishing, sailing or biking. Any excuse to be outside really. I guess because the sun is so seldom available you have to take it when you can. When I first came to Finland in the summer of 2002 my husband begged me to go do something outside everyday. I didn't understand why he felt the need to go out every day. Now I do. In Trinidad we try to stay out of the sun as much as possible. You tend to change that Trini mindset once you experience one winter here.

Many people spend their summer vacation at the family summer cottage. Traditionally it's some ancestor's humble house on the lake, handed down through the generations while everyone migrated to the cities. The basic cottage has no running water or electricity but water can be had from a well or nearby lake. But many have been "pimped" or "tricked out" to contain all the modern luxuries. Nowadays many people buy a cottage of their own. Other people choose to go abroad during the summer. While most of Europe takes their summer holidays in August, Finns take theirs in July, as July is most likely to be the warmest month of the summer. However, his year the warmest month was June with a couple weeks of close to 30 degrees centigrade weather. At the same time it was rainy in Central Europe and cool in the southern countries such as Spain. This was highly unusual for June.

This year we went to the Taste of Helsinki food festival where you can try food from some of the best restaurants in Helsinki. It was a beautiful warm day and I really enjoyed our "date". I think this is the day I enjoyed most this summer. Here are some photos of that beautiful Helsinki summer's day.

The University of Helsinki's main building at Senate Square

                                                               Thai cultural festival

                                                   Street performers

                                               The Lutheran Cathedral at Senate Square

                                                                  Orthodox Cathedral

                                                   We had a beer at this boat bar

                                                            View from boat bar

Will the Royal Babies of Europe Start Sleeping in Cardboard Boxes?

My first ever blog talked about strange Finnish parenting habits like putting our babies to sleep in cardboard boxes. Recently BBC ran an article about the Finnish maternity package titled "Why Finnish Babies sleep in Cardboard Boxes"  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22751415. The Finnish welfare department said that after this article they got many calls from around the world asking to buy the maternity package. Here is what's in this year's maternity package: http://www.kela.fi/web/en/maternitypackage.

Now it seems the royal babies of Europe may start sleeping in cardboard boxes because the Finnish state has recently given the soon-to-be parents, Prince William of Britain and his wife Kate, a maternity package and its associated mattress and linens as a present. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-23138306. Finland reportedly also sent the crown Princess of Sweden and her husband a package when they had their baby last year.

According to the BBC article, the idea behind offering a mattress in the box so that it could be used as a cot, came about to encourage people to put their babies to sleep in it's own bed and to stop the "unsafe" practice of co-sleeping. The article goes on to chronicle the history of the box and it's origins and how it evolved as a means to encourage healthy parenting habits such as seeing a doctor for prenatal care (you don't get the package unless you see the state doctor), breast feeding (they do not include bottles or pacifiers) and care for the environment (they include reusable diapers).

So maybe this trend of the maternity package may catch on around the world with a few governments starting a similar program. Maybe in addition to seeing other Finnish babies in the same clothes as mine and knowing what year they were born, I may see the royal babies of Europe sporting the same Finnish baby clothes as mine. Or maybe I should start a business buying and selling the same products in the box to people abroad ; )

Difficulties of the Finnish language.

I have always thought that my moving to Finland where I have had to learn Finnish is divine retribution for all the pain I caused my French and Spanish teachers in school. At that time I never saw the need to learn a foreign language and so I never really studied or paid much attention in the classes. Consequently, I barely passed these subjects in school.

Cue six years latter and I move to Finland where I have had to learn Finnish. One of the most difficult foreign languages for English speakers to try to learn according to the Language Difficulty Ranking put together by the US State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, FSI. 
http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty. 
Local news channel YLE has written a short article about how difficult it is to learn Finnish.  
http://yle.fi/uutiset/finnish_among_most_difficult_languages_for_english_speakers/6690499 
I didn't need to learn Finnish to live in Finland because most Finns speak very good or fluent English. It is mostly the older generation who do not speak any English. As a small country Finns think it important to learn a foreign language in order to manage in the wider world. And since the lingua franca of the twenty-first century is English everyone speaks it. Also luckily for me I work in such an international field (scientific research) that English is widely used at work and it was not necessary for me to learn Finnish in order to find employment. But my mother and father-in-law do not speak much English and if you live in a foreign country it is wise to learn the local language. And so I did. I took approximately three years of Finnish courses and learned even the most complicated grammar construction of literature and poetry. But for the life of me, I couldn't express myself, because I never used the language. When I decided to apply for Finnish citizenship I was forced to practice the use of the language in order to pass the test for the language requirement. That's when my Finnish language ability really developed. Finnish is very difficult for English speakers to learn because the grammar and structure is totally different to English. There are no articles. There is no gender and hän is used to mean both he and she. There is no future tense. Tulen can mean both, I am coming right now, or I will come tomorrow. The language uses double letters a lot which can change the meaning of a word if you pronounce it wrongly. For instance Tuuli means wind but tuli means fire. Words can become extremely long because the tenses and cases are expressed by adding various suffixes (of which there are fifteen) instead of prefixes. You can read about the fifteen cases and suffixes here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_noun_cases.

Consider the longest word in Finnish: lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas. Which means technical warrant officer trainee specialized in aircraft jet engines, and is supposedly actually used by the Finnish Air Force. It consists of sixty-one letters! Now try saying that word while drunk. It's a skill even few Finns can master. On the other hand Finnish is very easy to pronounce or spell once you get the hang of it because the words are pronounced exactly the way they are written. There are no silent letters or endings like in French. Finnish people have a hard time learning French for this reason. There are no same sounding words with different spellings like, meat and meet. Is it any wonder J.R.R. Tolkien was fascinated by the language and used it as his inspiration for Elvish? Though my Finnish has vastly improved over the last five years, I would still not consider myself fluent in the language. I come across new words I don't know on a daily basis and I make grammatical mistakes. On a bad day when I am tired or my brain stops working I have a hard time stringing two words together in Finnish. So nowadays I can shop, order, watch TV, listen to the news or radio, read simple news articles, have conversations with friends and write e-mails and simple notes in Finnish. Because most Finnish people realize theirs is a complicated language they are usually pleasantly surprised and happy when a foreigner can speak their language. Knowing that their language is only used by Finns in Finland and is therefore not a particularly useful language to learn they are happy that you even bothered to try. I am praised all the time for my faulty Finnish skills because there are many English speakers who never bothered to learn Finnish even though they have lived in Finland many years. My parents-in-law on the other hand are of the opposite opinion and always criticize me for not speaking better Finnish after living here for almost eleven years. But it is really hard to improve when it is so easy to be lazy and speak English and when everyone usually switches to Finnish if they notice you are having trouble. Many times people answer me in English even when I have started the conversation in Finnish! 

I have made colourful gaffs like saying pakolainen (refugee) when I meant pakollinen (mandatory), or lihavia (obese) instead of lihaksia (muscles). It's a complicated language which I doubt I will ever truly master, but after my near failing grades in French in school, I am never the less proud of my Finnish skills. 

Daycare in Helsinki

So I started working again so my daughter is now in daycare. Most of the day care centres here are state run and operated. So the standard of care is pretty uniform. There are some private day care centres but they are mostly specialized in that they use a special method or philosophy in child rearing, like Steiner or Montessori. Or they teach the children a foreign language or about ecology and nature. Because the day care centres are state run they are subsidized and cost a maximum of 263 euros a month. Depending on your salary you may pay less or nothing at all. And some mothers who do not work also put their children in daycare. The private day care centres cost more. But you can get some financial support from the state to pay for the private daycare. So many of the English language centres I called cost between four hundred to seven hundred euros after state subsidies. 

None of the English speaking daycare centres are close to our home and they are a bit expensive in my opinion so we opted for regular public day care. It has been almost three months since our daughter started day care and it has been great. I was worried that I was not doing the right thing by sending her to day care at one and a half years old. Because all the child development experts say it is best for small children to be at home with their care giver until up to two or three years old. And for the first two weeks it really tore my heart to see her cry when we left her. But it has been the best decision we could have made. She loves it there and she is learning so many new things. Her Finnish vocabulary is growing very rapidly and she can now count from two to ten in Finnish (not that she understands what she is saying). She has also learned to drink from a mug by herself.

She is so active and social that it is the best place for her to be as there are lots of people around and lots of things to do. They sometimes take trips to the library or the marketplace square or nature areas. And last month the entire day care centre put on a circus performance for the parents.

The daycare centre opens at 6:15. We drop our daughter off at 8:00 at which time they feed them breakfast. After breakfast they read, sing nursery rhymes, count, talk about the weather, the day's schedule and play games. Then they play outside from 9:30 to 11:30. 11:00 is lunch tim and then the children nap from 12:00 to 2:00. They have a snack when they wake up and then go outside to play again until we pick her up. There are also 24 hour day care centres for parents who do shift work. All the meals are provided by the day care. They have a cook onsite who cooks all the day's meals. The meals are regular home cooked Finnish food like fish soup and berry fool. The personnel all seem very nice and Emilia sometimes cries to see them leave in the afternoon or when she leaves to come home with us. But she always has a big smile and happy greeting shouting "moi!" when we arrive to pick her up. I think that the day care is worth every penny and I am very satisfied with it thus far.

How to dress a Finnish child for all types of weather

The Finnish daycare centres let the children play outside for much of the day. If they are not eating or sleeping they are outside. So a Finnish parent has to have a variety of clothing to suit the four seasons of weather which sometimes all occur in one day. Though the calendar says it is officially spring in reality it is still the dead of winter here and although it was +5 degrees Celcius one day a couple weeks ago now it is snowing and -18 degrees again! So we still have to wear our winter clothing. To give you an idea of what outdoor clothing a little child in daycare needs I have taken pictures. These are the clothes I put on over her regular clothing.

So basically her outdoor clothes consists of: one pair of 100% woolen mittens worn underneath proper insulated winter mittens, two pairs of 100% woolen socks, 100% woolen jumper, a woolen balaclava hat (it negates the need for a scarf), a winter jumper which is made of windproof, slightly waterproof material with an inner insulating layer and of course insulated winter boots two sizes bigger in order to accommodate all the socks!

Then when spring really comes it will be rainy and wet. So I will have the added challenge of dressing her for cold/chilly and wet weather. I will dress her in something like this: a rain jumper lined with fleece, a fleece jumper underneath when it is cold, rain gloves, maybe the woolen under mittens from above if cold, rain boots with warm socks inside, and a hat. It may be that on a really cold spring day these rubber boats may not be warm enough so I am thinking of buying these:
http://www.reima.fi/en/collectioneng/footwear/boots They are very warm and water proof.

Then there are the wind breaker jumpers for when it is chilly and or windy and maybe slightly wet but not rainy. These are useful also in the summer as the summer can sometimes be disappointingly cool and or wet.

The day care center asked that we leave a spare pair of rain boats and outerwear in case they are not dressed for rain and it rains. So I left some plastic rain pants and coat in her cupboard at day care. She should be ready for anything now. Some of these pieces of outdoor clothing are not cheap but luckily I got many pieces from my friends. She has already outgrown some of her outdoor clothes. So this could be an expensive proposition to buy two of these winter jumpers and under jumpers each year. You Trinis don't know how lucky you have it!

Alas life for my little girl will never be as simple as her mother's was. There will be no running outside, clad only in a diaper, to play. But fortunately she is an active child and loves being outside no matter the temperature, rain or shine.

Could human warmth and interaction be worth more than gold?

Recently the results of a gallup poll listed Trinidad and Tobago as the fifth happiest nation in the world based on feelings of well-being. In the poll people were asked questions such as if they smiled a lot yesterday, if they felt respected and well-rested and if they had learned or accomplished something interesting that day. Our Latin American neighbours Panama, Paraguay, El Salvador and Venezuela were in the top four. http://www.gallup.com/poll/159254/latin-americans-positive-world.aspx These results are opposed to some previous studies which measured happiness based mostly on one's standard of living. In that poll relatively wealthy Scandinavian nations like Denmark and Norway, and other "first world" countries like Switzerland, Netherlands and Austria were in the top five. Finland, where I live was number nine on this list. http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/life-satisfaction/

It makes you wonder. Could it be possible that people from so-called "third world" countries are actually happier than those from "first world" countries? If so why? Well some friends and I were discussing this new gallup poll on Facebook. And we all agreed that regardless of Trinidad and Tobago's economic and social problems such as crime, faltering education and health systems and a large class divide, Trinbagonians are still very happy people.  We noted that despite the hardships people are more friendly with each other than in many other countries in the north. People can count on their neighbour, family or friends to help them out and are more optimistic. In addition, your dollar or euro can stretch further in many ways in Trinidad and Tobago than in Finland for instance. With our gas and oil subsidies and incredibly low property taxes, and cheaper labour the cost of living is not as high as in many developed nations. For instance my old school friends in Trinidad who have comparable levels of education and professions can afford household help because labour is cheaper. That might not seem like a big deal but consider how hiring a housekeeper can prevent bickering over who's turn it is to vacuum or prevent resentment towards your spouse for doing less housework. Or how being able to hire a nanny means that mummy can have a nap during the day if the baby has kept her up all night and still have time to exercise or go run errands and not feel rushed and stressed every day. Or think of how having someone cut your front lawn and trim your hedges every week means you don't have to nag your husband to do it. It definitely makes for a happier life.

On the other hand the more money you make in Finland the more tax you pay. In addition to which labour is very expensive so to hire a nanny or housekeeper would mean paying a salary of at least 1400 euros a month. The strong Finnish work ethic means that people work hard trying to show that they are independent and industrious and it is almost a sign of weakness to ask for help. Add to that the cold interpersonal relations and you can see that this society can be harsh.  People tend to internalize their stresses and problems rather than talk about them. Hence, depression and suicide is much higher than in Latin America and the Caribbean for instance. Sure my life here is easier in many ways. The health care system is much better than in Trinidad, though still not perfect. Everything runs well and on time so it is not much of a hassle to go to the authorities to deal with things like social security or passport renewal etc. If I am laid off tomorrow and in dire financial straights there is a wide array of financial support I can access from the state. There is very little crime and even the supposed bad (low income) areas are very safe. And of course Finland is economically more prosperous than Trinidad and Tobago. But the quality of everyday life is sometimes a struggle. Being a stay at home mom I realize now how very little human warmth and interaction there is here in Finland. If you don't see any friends and family you will not get it from strangers. Most people walk around looking miserable even when they are supposedly having fun. For instance my husband complains about the middle aged Finnish women who, in the summer time, love to dress in their bright summer dresses and go to the market square with their shopping basket, the whole while with a big frown on their faces. No one talks to or even looks at or smiles at strangers. For people living alone it can be a life saver just to get out of the house and have someone smile at them and have a mini chat. In Trinidad and Tobago you can't take public transport or go to the store without someone starting a conversation. And many times those are the funniest and most interesting conversations you will ever have. People smile a lot more and there is a more relaxed and happy atmosphere which in and of itself can lift your spirits. Of course the lovely sunny weather year round helps a lot too.

A former colleague at the University of Helsinki has echoed similar sentiments many times on his Facebook page. He has noticed that there are a lot of colleagues who complain of burn out at work and a lot of depression in Finland. He says that the Finnish society can be easy but the interpersonal relations are cold. He believes that if more Finns would start being more friendly and warm to each other they would probably feel better and have less burn out at their jobs and less depression in their lives. This phenomenon of depression and suicide seems to be a common thing in cultures which stress hard work, achievement and independence above all. Japan and Singapore for instance have many stressed people and high suicide rates. Singapore also has wonderful tropical weather like Trinidad but people reported being unhappy in the gallup poll. Singapore was 46 on the list. But the Japanese and Singaporeans work too much and don't play hard enough and so are much more stressed than Trinis who probably play harder than they work. See the eighth paragraph in the following link. http://www.livescience.com/25713-happiest-countries-happiness-gallup.html

Many people from developed nations would wonder how could anyone from a "third world " country be happy? People like the Finnish politician who's statement has become Finnish lexicon "To be born in Finland is like winning the lottery". Or people like my in-laws who cannot understand the dream to one day go back to the Caribbean. "Your life is much better here of course" or "Who would want to move to Trinidad?" are just a couple of statements they have uttered. First it shows that many "first worlders" do not understand that many so called "third world" countries like Trinidad are actually thriving economies in their own right and are not all squalid slums of poverty. According to the OECD Trinidad and Tobago actually achieved developed nation status in October 2011. 
http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/arthursnell/2011/11/07/an-historic-month-for-trinidad-tobago/
Secondly it shows that many people forget that there is more to life and happiness than just economic well being. They do not understand that human beings, being social animals, are happiest when they can have human warmth, support and interaction regardless of their wealth or lack thereof.

The old Finnish work ethic

In September we had an au-pair for six weeks. It didn’t work out so she left, which was unfortunate as it was a big help. But the reaction, from my in-laws and the older neighbour, to my getting an au pair was, “why do you need an au-pair? Emilia is an easy child”. In all honesty in a lot of ways they are right. Emilia is an easy child. She has never been a baby who cries a lot, is usually good tempered and smiling and laughing and does not seem to be too willful. But on the other hand she is a handful. She is a very active and social child. Before she was able to play by herself you needed to be with her all the time entertaining her or she would cry. That meant I couldn’t shower or eat or cook or clean or do much of anything during the day while she was awake. And when she didn’t sleep well (which as all parents of babies know is often) I was usually tired and just trying to get through each day. So I felt we needed some help and since both me and my husband’s family live outside of Finland I thought we should get an au-pair so I could have some help and we could have some free time together.

But in Finland hiring household help is very rare. One reason is that labour is too expensive in Finland, even with kotivähennys (a tax-back incentive that gives you back 40% of the money you spent on household help at the end of the year), for the average Finn to afford. But another big reason is the old Finnish work ethic that you must always be industrious, work hard and be self sufficient. That means that you shouldn’t rely on other people to help you and you should always be busy. If you are ever relaxing you must at least have some knitting or be doing something useful at the same time. You should never be idle. If you hire others to clean your house or yard or look after your children you must be a lazy person who likes to take advantage of poor people. Such is the mindset of the Finns.

Coming from a culture where anyone who can afford to will hire someone to help clean, cook and iron at least one or two days a week this thinking is a bit extreme to me. Some of my relatives have had maids and my grandmother said she had one when her children where very young. In fact her reaction to us getting an au-pair was “Good. You need the help!” I see nothing wrong with hiring someone to help you at home. All mothers know how hard it is to try to do all the housework and take care of children, especially if they also have a job outside the home. At the same time isn’t it a good thing to provide a job to someone? It is not advantageous if you pay them a fair wage and treat them like human beings. I guess the last time hired help was the norm in Finland was when the ruling Swedish speaking class hired servants and of course in that era we know how well the upper classes and aristocrats in Europe treated their servants. But now we are in the twenty first century where we have to pay taxes and pension contributions for such employees. They have unionized rights and regulated salary norms and working hours. It is not the same as two hundred years ago.

I really don’t understand the logic of working yourself to the bone if you can afford not to. It’s better for children if their parents are rested, happy and have more time and energy to spend quality time with them. When the au-pair was here I was well rested and got all the housework done. When I was with Emilia I had energy and time to concentrate on her alone and spend quality time with her. I actually enjoyed spending time with her and wasn’t just trying to get through another day. My mother-in-law will not see it this way but I really think it was better for Emilia. My father-in-law told me that we are young enough to have the energy to “kestää” (endure) like they did with three children while he worked a lot and my mother-in-law was home alone with the children. Like us all their family lived too far away to be of any help to them. But my husband remembers them being stressed all the time when he was a child. Children are intuitive and can pick up on the stress and tension in a house and it affects them. 

The younger Finnish generation's attitude towards hired household help is different to their parents. I know a couple who, after constantly arguing over who’s turn it was to clean, decided to hire a cleaner. They both work long hours and found it too stressful to worry about cleaning when they were hardly ever home. The husband of this couple told me that he has not mentioned to his father that they recently hired a cleaner. He says it is easier not to mention it than to argue with his father about it being a waste of money and having to explain why he and his wife can’t just clean the house themselves. Another friend was telling me that his father doesn’t understand him. His father thinks he should always be working hard. That it doesn’t matter so much whether you are a labourer or a high powered executive but the point is that he should always be working hard. 

Why does the older Finnish generation want us to go through things the hard way like they did? Shouldn’t you want better for your children? And does it make sense to work yourself to death at the expense of your health and quality time with your family if you can afford not to? Is it not better for your marriage and the family to be rested so that you can be in a good mood and have time and energy for your husband and children? Why should I prove to society that I can be supper-mom but be tired and unhappy?