Danish babies and their parents.

"We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The relation between parents and their children in Denmark is one more source of surprise for tourists. Why? Because when "baby" reaches 18, he or she leaves home. They do it in order to study at University and take a scholarship loan at the State. They have to pay back the scholarship loan later, but the education itself is for free.

Since that time they're independent people who live on their own money. Of course they stay in touch with parents, but no more than that. Parents' welfare comes to the end.

If a boy lives alone, without a girlfriend, he will soon have to master cooking and washing skills. Probably, it is one of the reasons why a lot of Danish men can and love cooking, and can clean the house with no problems.

And the parents themselves feel no right to tell to their son or daughter their opinions about his or her partner, friends or work. If a child asks for their opinion, they will tell, of course. But if the opinions are totally different, they will not thrust them on.

Some tourists can tell that in their countries parents feel free to break into the lives of their "baby" and share their opinions about everything. Parents think that this is a real way of showing care and love about a child.

In Denmark this is not much the case. Here, "care of a baby" means the attempt to understand and to accept the opinion of a child without pushing. After all, a 18-year-old "baby" has his own thoughts and ideas. And if children's ideas differ from parents' ones, this is a problem of the latter. That is what considered to be the relation between "fathers and children" in Denmark.

Written by Newborn Baby Gift Baskets.com exclusively for DenmarkFacts.com

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