87. Parenting Styles Around the World: Finnish Baby Boxes, French Toddler Cuisine and More!

Join me on a journey through parenting practices from around the globe. We'll explore everything from the Finnish baby box that provides expecting parents with essential items, to the serene approach to pregnancy in Japan. Discover how Koreas focus on postpartum recovery and bonding.

I'll also discuss the unique Danish tradition of letting babies nap outside in the fresh air. This episode is all about embracing different parenting perspectives and shedding some of the pressures and guilt that often accompany motherhood.

📺 Watch the episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOpw5ui4uxJHx0tLFVtpnfSkpObfc4d-K

You can find Katie at:
website: burntpancakes.com
YouTube: @burnt.pancakes
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Email: katie@burntpancakes.com

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Transcript

00:09 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Hello, hello and welcome back to the Burn Pancakes podcast, where we laugh, connect and remind ourselves that perfection is overrated. I'm your host, katie Fenske, and if you're new here, I remind moms that everyone burns their first pancake, sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively, but either way, we're not afraid to admit it. Today's episode is one that I've been excited about for weeks. I've been doing a little research, so we're packing our virtual bags and we're taking a trip around the world to see how moms in other cultures do this whole parenting thing. So, spoil alert, it's a little different outside of the United States, from pregnancy to toddlers and school-age kids and teenagers. Some of these differences might surprise you. Neither one is good or bad or wrong or right. It's just interesting to see how other moms are doing it. Now here's the thing we often get so wrapped up in like our own little bubble. Like, is my kid watching to the nudge TV? Should I be doing baby led weaning? How do I keep up with all the Pinterest moms and the snack lunches and going to all these cool places? But guess what? Moms in Japan and Kenya and Sweden are asking the same questions by the end of this episode. I just really want you to laugh and learn and maybe just rethink some of this mom guilt that you're feeling or carrying around with you. 

01:36
All right, so let's get started. All right, let's start with pregnancy, because that's where this whole parenting journey begins. It kind of unofficially begins then, but if you count all those like Google searches that you do like is sushi safe in the first trimester? How much water should I be drinking? All of those questions that I asked it all starts with pregnancy. So let's start in Finland, where pregnancy support looks like it came out of a dream. When you're expecting, the Finnish government gives you a baby box filled with all kinds of essentials like onesies and diapers, thermometer all the things that you put on your registry. It even has a tiny mattress that turns into the box that your child can sleep safely in. When they're a newborn, I mean, they're basically giving you a bassinet. The baby box has been around since the 1930s and it's credited with like helping lower infant mortality rates. Meanwhile, in the US, you leave the hospital with like a bill and a warning label and no clue what to do next. Pill and a warning label and no clue what to do next. I specifically remember taking birthing classes at the hospital. I mean, one Friday night I took a birthing class and one breastfeeding class but literally felt so clueless when I brought Ronan home with us I didn't feel like I was prepared at all, even though I had read a ton of books. So knowing that there's a country that really supports prenatal care and prenatal preparedness, that is very appealing. It sounds really nice. 

03:15
All right, moving over to Japan, pregnancy is treated almost like an art form. There. Expected moms are encouraged to just stay calm and relaxed to ensure a peaceful baby. They don't encourage heavy exercise, spicy food or having negative thoughts, which I don't know how you do that when you are pregnant, especially when you're pregnant like the second, third time and you have little kids with you. So we compare that to the United States where I was literally doing weighted squats and burpees at a bootcamp when I was nine months pregnant with Jet. Now I will say that during that pregnancy I felt great doing it and I did get back into shape pretty quickly. So for that pregnancy, working out a ton and staying active um helped me. But with my third pregnancy I barely worked out it like really was hard. I mean that pregnancy was very hard. Um, it just was not comfortable to move. I I don't know if it's because it was my third um the positioning of where he was, but like literally walking hurt. So the thought of like being in a Japanese culture when they tell you to relax and, you know, stay positive, that actually sounds very appealing. It would have been nice. 

04:37
All right, now let's talk a little bit about postpartum care, cause I mean I've talked about that on our podcast a lot about how that postpartum period sends to teams to get um forgotten for a lot of us moms. So in Korea there's something called and I don't know if I'm pronouncing this right a San, who will who? Or G Koreans please correct me but it's basically a dedicated period of recovery, postpartum, where moms can focus solely on just resting and healing and bonding with their baby. Many women even go to like a postpartum care center where they're pampered with massages and meals. I mean, here in the U S we're lucky if our friend brings us a frozen lasagna. Most women, including myself in those first four weeks, are so worried about the thought of going back to work that you're already thinking about pumping and freezing breast milk. I just know that postpartum period for me was very stressful and I didn't really get a chance to relax, and anytime I felt tired and wanted to take a nap I felt guilty about that. So I wish we could take on a little bit of that Korean philosophy or mentality of resting during that postpartum time. 

05:52
Okay, speaking of those early days, here is a fun fact In Denmark it is totally normal to see babies napping outside in their strollers or in like a little baby basket, even in freezing temperatures. Danish parents believe that fresh air is essential for a baby's health and their immune system and they will let them sleep outside when it is very chilly. I mean, can you imagine the looks you would get if you left your baby outside on your doorstep for a nap? Like you'd have Karen from HOA looking on your door, knocking on your door in for a nap. Like you'd have Karen from HOA looking on your door, knocking on your door in like five minutes, like what is your child doing out here? But it's just very interesting that like that is culturally acceptable there. All right, moving on to those toddler years or those Y stage, this is where parenting gets really interesting, because every culture seems to have a different take on how to handle these little humans. 

06:50
I personally found the toddler stage was really challenging. I'm going to say okay, I'm going to say more exhausting than challenging. It was just so hard for me keeping up with a toddler. I mean he didn't take the longest naps and we spent the rest of the day running around because he seemed to have the energizer bunny in him. Like he, my oldest was just constantly go, go, go. So I did feel like those toddler years were really hard. 

07:20
Well, in France, even preschoolers have a sophisticated palette. So French daycares serve three course meals to kids as young as three. They're talking about like real food, so roasted chicken, fresh vegetables, cheese. So like that PBJ and dino nugget lunch with like a slice of apple that I feed my kids would not fly there. French parents believe that it's their job to teach their kids to appreciate food and not just eat it. Meanwhile I'm over here celebrating when my kids eat something green that isn't a gummy vitamin. I will say that my boys were really good eaters up until about like one, one and a half, when I introduced fishies to them. 

08:10
Once I got a taste for snack foods, it was so hard to get them to eat Like. Last night at dinner my son, jet like, could barely eat a roasted carrot, like, oh, this is so disgusting. And I'm like when you were a baby you gobbled this up. Like what changed? Now I will say that ronan, being 11 in the last couple years, we've kind of just said these are the vegetables on your plate, we want you to eat them, and he will pretty much eat anything. But getting the other two to eat healthy food is such a challenge. So I always wonder, like if we were living in France and this was just the norm from the day they were born and they didn't have all those snack food options that I do give them because it's convenient, I don't know, maybe they would be better eaters. 

08:57
All right, let's hop over to Germany and this amazing world of Walder kindergarten or forest kindergarten. So picture this in Germany a group of five-year-olds spending their entire day outdoors, rain or shine. There are no walls, no desks and no screen time. Kids will climb trees and dig in the mud and learn like survival and problem solving and building shelters. It really sounds like the perfect situation for my boys. Um it? It sounds ideal. Well, that is their like norm for kindergarten. 

09:34
Uh, we actually did do something here in the U S called tinker garden when my boys were like I don't know, two, two and a half, three. It was a class that we signed up with but it was just a weekly class meetup at a park and it did have very similar philosophies where the point was just to explore nature, problem solve, interact with other kids, and the parents were kind of just there as um observers, but not necessarily like the instructors. So the instructor would kind of like put out some things and then the kids were there to explore with it. My kids love this. I always made sure to pack extra clothes because they got muddy, they got dirty. There was water play. They like highly encouraged that. 

10:18
Now I could tell that a lot of us, u S moms, um, were kind of uncomfortable with this. Like it was hard at first to like sure, put your hands in the dirt and like play with this mud. Like our instinct is like, oh, don't get dirty, I don't want that getting into my car, um. But my boys thrived in a class like this and like the. The less I worried about the mess, the more like I could see them getting into it. Um, there was a day too where it rained and like any other class, we'd think, oh, it's outdoor at a park, it's canceled. The instructor was like, don't worry, I'm bringing a tarp and we can set up a tarp and do class under it. And we literally had a class in the rain which was very different than what I had experienced before. So it made me really feel like I was in German tinker garden or kindergarten and I don't know. I really liked that. I think my boys would have done really well if that had been something that we kept up. Covid kind of put a squash to that. All right. Now here's something that really um, surprised me. 

11:22
In Vietnam and parts of China, potty training starts as early as infancy and it's completely child led. So as a potty training consultant like I am seeing, the average age that a lot of moms start here in the U? S is like three, right around three. I see kids older than that, I see kids younger, um, but when you hear that moms are not having to potty train because they've been potty trained since they were infants kind of like, blows your minds. So in those cultures moms use like a whistling sound or a cue to signal their babies when it's time to go and over time the baby starts associating the sound with the act of going. People in the US do try this. It's called elimination communication, and I've been starting to see that more, where parents will say we did this when they were infants, but it's really like leading away from using diapers at all. It does take a lot on the parent to look for those cues, but can you imagine being done with potty training that early? That's just kind of like the cultural norm. Now I get it. So many moms now are working moms, and this just isn't doable. Like it takes a lot on the parent's part to do this, but it is just fascinating to see that there's just a different approach in another country. Okay, here's another fun one. 

12:53
In parts of West Africa, toddlers are encouraged to do the very independent and self-sufficient Like we're talking two-year-olds here. For example, in some Nigerian cultures, parents rarely like hover over their kids. They trust them to learn by doing and by making mistakes. Haha, allah, everyone burns their first pancake. It really is, though, such a difference from like this helicopter parenting culture that we have here, where we practically bubble wrap our kids when we send them out to the door out the door. Now I can a hundred percent see this in myself. 

13:30
Um, two examples, so I helped out in Jet's classroom over Christmas break at one of his Christmas parties so these are first graders and I was in charge of the table that did stringing beads onto a pipe cleaner and then they made them into a wreath and it was a pretty simple I thought pretty simple craft. The amount of kids in his class that the minute they heard the directions went I can't do it. Can you help me? I can't do this. They were helpless. I was pretty shocked, like they were just even afraid to give it a try. 

14:09
But then also my son the other day wanted to ride his bike. Usually they just like ride their bike on our street. He wanted to go like to the street behind us and then like ride over to where the school is. He's 11. And when I was a kid I was doing that. But I instantly kind of freaked out and I was like but I can't see you when you're back on that other street, I can't see where you are and I, I like I had to stop myself. And there's a fine line between giving them independence when it's safe and keeping them safe, cause modern days there are a lot of other dangers that I mean we as parents think about. But he was safe and I knew where he was going. He doesn't have a phone, so it's not like I was like call me when you get there. And it was not far, it was like a couple blocks away. He wanted to go, but my first instinct was, no, I can't see you, I have to be with you. And then I was like no, katie, like you can let him do it, he wants independence, you can let him do that. So, let him do that. So it is interesting in other cultures they encourage this early on, but also in our culture there's just a safety aspect that we have to consider. So that is something I am working on lately is like figuring out ways to give my kids more independence that is in a safe way, but also like extending my like uh, helicopter mom tendencies. 

15:31
Okay, let's move on out of the toddler stage and talk about school age, kids and education. This is kind of like a hot topic right now when we're talking about kids and education. So in China, education is very highly valued and the school day is way longer and more rigorous than kids in the US. Kids spend hours on academics, but they also practice disciplines through activities like calligraphy and Tai Chi, so kind of well-rounded. It's intense, but it's rooted in the idea that hard work and perseverance pays off. 

16:07
Now, do I necessarily agree with a longer school day? Not really. I just wish our schools this is just my two cents. I wish our schools valued education, but also valued like time at home. I am just so tired of getting home from school and then nagging my kids about doing homework Like you've been in school all day and now we're doing this when I'd like you outside riding your bike. Anyways, that's my two cents. Okay. Contrast the Chinese culture with Finland, where it is one of the most relaxed yes, yet effective school systems in the world, finnish kids start school later, like around age seven, and spend less time in the classroom each day. So shorter school days, homework is minimal and they have an abundance of recess. Yet somehow they can consistently rank at the top in the global education. So, whatever they're doing, I want that here, like I want my kids to be outside, to be exploring more, to like not be sitting at a desk, but also academically succeeding. So whoever wants to study what they're doing, and bring that here, that would be amazing. Okay. 

17:33
Now this one actually hits very close to home because it's from the Netherlands where my grandparents are from. So I am half Dutch. My kids are quarter Dutch. Dutch kids are ranked usually as the happiest kids in the world. So why is this? What are they doing to make their kids so happy? Well, in the Dutch culture it really does start at home. Grandparents are a big part of the Dutch culture and many kids have very close bonds and relationships and spend quality time with their grandparents, and I can see this firsthand. 

18:08
Um, my mom, or Oma, is a really big part of my kids' lives and she is one of 13 kids, so she has. Um, there were six girls in the family, seven girls in the family. Oh my God. There's so many, I can't count them, but I can see that now in all of my aunts and the way they grandparent their grandkids like they're all so involved and Oma is like the most amazing person in their life. Still to this day. My 11 year old Oma is like so much. They love her more than me can't blame them because she's amazing. They would rather spend time with her. She is amazing, but it is such a beautiful relationship that I think it's was instilled in her from her dutch upbringing. So kids are happy being with their oma. Um, they also the dutch prioritize work-life balance really well. Family meals are really important. I can say firsthand that we're so on the go with sports that family meals are really rare in our house. So I kind of wonder, like if we brought that back a little bit better, I don't know how would that be. And schools are really focused on freedom and exploring kids' interests. So the Dutch kids are very happy. 

19:26
Okay, and speaking of freedom, we're going to circle back to Japan for a moment. Have you ever seen those videos of, like, little Japanese kids commuting to school on their own? It is not uncommon for six-year-olds to hop on a train or a bus without a parent. It's part of teaching independence and responsibility from an early age. So meanwhile we're still over here buckling up our seven-year-old's car seats because it's faster and we don't want to hear them argue. Um, I get, today's world is a little different and we can't just send our kids on a bus like that. Um, but again back to the whole biking thing. Like, I think our kids do crave that independence and it is hard for us now in the United States to feel comfortable giving them that. So just some food for thought there. Okay. So moving on to teenagers, this could be a challenging time. 

20:24
In the United States, a lot of times we think of um this as like a very rebellious time, but in many cultures, teens stay very connected to their families. In Latin American cultures, it's really common for multi-generations to live under one roof. Teenagers are expected to contribute to the household, whether it's helping with chores or looking after younger siblings or just being present at family gatherings, and it just really comes from a strong sense of community and responsibility. In South Korea, education takes a center stage during those teen years. High school students often attend during the day and then study at night at private academies. It's really intense, but they believe it's an investment in their future. Now, meanwhile, in Italy, teenagers are a little bit more lax. Family dinners are a non-negotiable thing, so they're required to be there, and weekends are often spent with extended family. So it's less about academic pressure there and more about building relationships with family and enjoying life. So, as you can see, stark differences in all these cultures Is one way right? No, it's just very interesting to see how things go in different areas. 

21:45
So what's the takeaway from all of this? For me it's just a reminder that there's no one size fits all approach to parenting. What works in Kenya might not work in the United States, and that's totally fine. Like this is still a concept I am really, really trying to instill in myself. Maybe we can borrow a few ideas, though, from some people, like the finished baby box, um, or just having that support during that postpartum time. Or the French approach to food, because, let's be honest, like a toddler who willingly eats vegetables sounds amazing Like they are doing something right and maybe I can learn a little something from them. 

22:29
And let's not forget independence. Whether it's letting our kids ride their bikes to school or just trusting them to load the dishwasher without supervision, there's something to say about stepping back and letting our kids kind of figure things out. So, at the end of the day, parenting is about doing what is best with what we have and remind, remembering that burning a pancake or two along the way is part of the process. We're all kind of figuring this out. So that is it for our trip around the world. I hope you enjoyed this episode, um, maybe learned a few things about other cultures. If you did, I would love it. If you subscribed to the podcast, wrote a review, shared it with some friends or just said hello to me over on social media. And until next week's Momversation, I hope you have a great week and remember that everyone burns their first pancake, so just keep flipping you.