As a father of twins I’ve made a good few new friends who were also ’blessed’ with two toddling whirlwinds. The one thing all my Swedish-residing twin parents give thanks for is the Swedish daycare system.
Funnily enough, daycare is also the one aspect of twin parenting that drives my American and British friends barmy.
Daycare is essential for parents of twins, if they are to have any kind of life outside nappies, tantrums and feeding. Two toddlers of the same age aren’t double the amount of work as one – they’re at least triple. They egged each other on, tried to impress one another with naughty antics, loved a good food fight and competed with one another to present us with the most interestingly-filled nappy.
So, when I told a UK-based twin parent of our plans to send our girls to daycare when they reached 18 months, she was inspired to look into similar provisions for her double troubles. She really wanted to get back to work, part-time.
Three days later she sent me an email that made me splutter and give thanks once again that we moved to Sweden. For the same number of hours that our two spent tormenting daycare staff in Sweden, she would have to pay 2,400% more each month in the UK. No, that’s not a typo - those zeroes are supposed to be there.
And, no, she doesn’t live in expensive southern England; she lives near Newcastle, up north. So, she simply cannot afford to send her boys to nursery and is forced to forget about her career for the time being. Sadly the UK government doesn't want to help women back to work. Or it just doesn't care.
The quality of care is so good here in Sweden. Like the hospital staff we’ve encountered in Skellefteå who were natural caregivers, our girls’ teachers were simply born to look after toddlers. After just a week of exposure to these three women, our girls were kissing them goodbye.
Feedback from friends in other countries has been, at best, spotty. There are tales of children being left alone for long stretches, full nappies being ignored, inadequate food being provided. And that’s paying an average of around £263 (3,600 kronor) per week in the UK and $321 (3,500 kronor) in the US. Per child.
It’s possible we’ve just been lucky – maybe our förskola was remarkable. Or perhaps the Swedes have just got their generous daycare provisions bang on. Even when you take Swedish tax and UK childcare vouchers into consideration, a Swedish couple needs to earn around 25 percent less than an English couple to enjoy the same level of childcare and a comparable standard of living.
But it’s not just about fairness and quality of life. Economically, cheap or free childcare makes perfect sense. Recent research has indicated that the increased tax revenues from both parents being able to work that would result from providing cheap, Swedish-style care for all UK pre-school children would outstrip the initial cost.
But there’s little chance of that happening in the UK, right now, given the catastrophically incompetent government in charge.
The most important benefit of preschool was for our girls' futures. In small rural communities like ours, friendships are made very early in life and attending a preschool at their age has stood them in good stead.
They also learned Swedish very quickly, well enough to now be thoroughly embarrassed if either their mum or dad ever try to speak to them, or – god forbid! – their friends, in Swedish.
This is a column and the views are the author's own.
Paul Connolly is the editor of Norran's English site, norran.se/english, and this text was originally published there.