Emma Hughes travels a lot for work. But while other global-trotting professionals visit clients, sites, conferences, and events, Emma only meets with clients, who are primarily newborns and toddlers. She’s a temp nanny and travel nanny who provides childcare to families on vacations. Despite being based in Maine, Emma has worked all around the U.S. and more recently in Sweden. There she experienced a unique kind of culture shock, not because of the new customs, food, or language, but because of the dads.
“I can’t marry an American man after living in Sweden”
“I think I’ve been ruined for American men,” said 24-year-old Emma in an Instagram video posted on April 27. “Specifically raising a child with an American man in America, because these Scandinavian dads? Chef’s kiss …” This is not an anecdotal observation; this is a well-researched phenomenon. Nordic countries offer shared parental leave, which allows fathers to be more involved with childcare and tend to view child-rearing as a shared responsibility.
“I’m actually embarrassed to talk about this because all of the observations that I’ve made have really revealed to me how deeply ingrained sh*tty dads have become in my brain, and it’s just like the default.” She explained how she is instinctively impressed by dads doing basic parenting activities, such as taking kids to the park. “When I see more dads pushing their strollers in the park on a Saturday morning than moms, what does my brain think immediately? ‘That’s weird; there is something abnormal about that,’” Hughes said. “When I see dads at the grocery store with their kids. When I see dads out at restaurants or in public. It is so deeply telling of a lot of subconscious stuff that I have going on in my brain after working with so many families.”
Cultural Differences in Relationships and Parenting Styles
She said that even the best American dads she’s worked with would be considered the “Scandinavian bare minimum” because the “exceptional, hands-on, active” fathers in America are the exception and not the rule. In the majority of the families she’s worked with, the mom carried most of the “physical load of childcare and the mental load,” which involves scheduling doctor appointments, hiring babysitters, reading parenting books, sizing up in clothes, etc. Emma had to leave instructions for dads on how to take care of their own kids when she and the mom weren’t around.
She applauded one Swedish father who purchased a new size of diapers for his baby without being told to do so by his partner. “The dad just saw and recognized that this baby’s probably ready for size 2 diapers,” and bought them. She laughed at herself for being mindblown by this initiative. “I’m never leaving [Sweden],” she laughed at the end of the clip.
Praised for “Helping Out”
Many American fathers rely on their wives to do most of the childcare. You see this societal expectation first-hand all over social media, where mothers are nitpicked for their parenting decisions while dads are lauded for sometimes doing the same thing. For instance, a mother might be criticized for giving her kids an unhealthy meal, but when dad does it, he’s praised for feeding them their favorite dinner. In some cases, moms are seen as primarily caregivers, but dads just “help out” or “babysit”. Sometimes it seems that mothers must be perfect while dads get participation trophies.
Here’s a more specific example: One mom called out this double standard in a TikTok, where she explained her husband took their baby and toddler to the grocery store. Three people stopped him to praise him for being a good father for taking them along. “Do you know how many times I’ve taken both of my kids to the grocery store, to literally everywhere? A million. How many people have stopped me to say I’m a great mom? Zero.”
Meanwhile, in Sweden it’s common to see fathers out and about with strollers and baby carriers. They are affectionately nicknamed “latte pappas” and they tend to congregate in cafes with other dads and attend baby-and-me classes, according to Fatherly. Research shows that fathers who take longer paternity leaves have better relationships with their partners and babies and better overall life satisfaction. It also allows women to pursue careers and be more active in the workforce.
Sweden vs American Parental Leave
Sweden provides 480 days of paid parental leave per child. Each parent must take at least 90 days off, and they can divide the rest between them; it doesn’t have to be all at once. Often, moms would take off the first six to eight months and the dad would take over the next six to eight months. “One of the main discussions now is how do we make dads stay at home more,” says Victor Harju, a spokesman for Sweden’s Ministry for Social Affairs and Health., to NBC News. “We are in firm belief that children have the right to spend time with both their parents, and we have to ensure that the system also covers that and pushes society toward that direction.”
Compare that to the U.S. where there is no federally mandated paid parental leave so families depend on individual business policies and unpaid time off. It indicates that perhaps the average American man would do more if he could. “It really goes to show what happens when a culture raises boys to be attuned and capable, prioritizes families, and puts systems in place to support them,” said Emma, whose company is Nurtured by Emma, to Newsweek. “A dad seeing a need, problem-solving, and proactively finding the solution all on his own should be the bare minimum!”
Read More: The Question That Ended A Marriage
