Do it for Denmark

[expatmama]

It's been a tough week, but this campaign from a Danish travel agency made me giggle. 

Conceive a baby on a vacation you purchase with them and win 3 years of diapers!



Or slightly creepier, you could Do It for Mom

[colinsfebmommy]

This made me laugh. Are they really having trouble populating there!?!?!!?

[summer]

That might be two of the more disturbing things I've seen in a while. LOL

[sagen]

Too funny!

[dc2london]

Omg amazing

[expatmama]

Aug 17, 2016 15:50:08 GMT -5 colinsfebmommy said:

This made me laugh. Are they really having trouble populating there!?!?!!?

Yes, Europe has been having issues with low birth rates and this is actually one of the driving forces behind the generous parental leave programs in Northern Europe, but ovulation vacations have not become a thing yet, thank god.

[seadragon2013]

These are amazing!

[crimsonandclover]

What?! 2 of our 3 kids were conceived on a vacation (not by this company) - why was I unaware that these kinds of vacations exist?

[colinsfebmommy]

I wish USA would slow their roll with populating lol

[creepyeyeball]

Aug 18, 2016 12:31:06 GMT -5 colinsfebmommy said:

I wish USA would slow their roll with populating lol

The US is actually experiencing population decline too. We're following the same path as Japan and Europe. Even immigrant populations in the US aren't reproducing at the same rate they were a decade ago. This is going to create so many problems in the next few decades. We already can't fund Social Security and other programs that depend on younger generations providing for the older ones.

Just doing my part to help the US economy . If only DH and I were in Denmark. Lol

[crimsonandclover]

In addition to tax deductions for children, Germany provides parents with a monthly supplement per child to encourage people to have them. For the first two children it's 190€ (about $210 now?) per month - each, that is -, for the third it's 196€, and starting with the fourth it's a bit more. I'm not sure how much exactly and don't feel like googling it. But that means we get 576€ / month transferred to our account. We would have had the kids even without that, but I'm not going to complain. I also just realized that means it will exactly cover the cost of childcare each month once DD3 starts daycare!

[beenandgone]

Aug 18, 2016 15:44:48 GMT -5 crimsonandclover said:

In addition to tax deductions for children, Germany provides parents with a monthly supplement per child to encourage people to have them. For the first two children it's 190€ (about $210 now?) per month - each, that is -, for the third it's 196€, and starting with the fourth it's a bit more. I'm not sure how much exactly and don't feel like googling it. But that means we get 576€ / month transferred to our account. We would have had the kids even without that, but I'm not going to complain. I also just realized that means it will exactly cover the cost of childcare each month once DD3 starts daycare!

That's really amazing! Do they cap it at some point? Or are they just encouraging population grown?

[crimsonandclover]

beenandgone, nope, no cap. It's 190 / month for kids 1 + 2, 196 / month for the 3rd, and 221 / month for the fourth and each one after that (I looked it up ).

And daycare/preschool gets successively cheaper. For DDs 1+2 we were paying 200€ / month for preschool. As soon as we became a 3-child household, it went down to 120€ / month. If we had a fourth, I think we would only pay 60€ / month for preschool DDs 1+2. We're not going to have a fourth, but there's no financial reason not to. There are also several other financial benefits including an automatic and significant payment off our principal for our house when we had DD3.

Our taxes are also not *that* much higher than in the US, and if I have to pay a bit more in taxes later to help out other young families like we are being helped now, that is perfectly fine with me.

[beenandgone]

crimsonandclover Okay, that answers it. We are moving to Germany.

[creepyeyeball]

Aug 18, 2016 22:32:51 GMT -5 beenandgone said:

crimsonandclover Okay, that answers it. We are moving to Germany.

I would, but homeschooling is illegal. Boo!

[colinsfebmommy]

Aug 19, 2016 7:00:40 GMT -5 creepyeyeball said:

Aug 18, 2016 22:32:51 GMT -5 beenandgone said:

crimsonandclover Okay, that answers it. We are moving to Germany.

I would, but homeschooling is illegal. Boo!

Seriously!?!? Why?

[creepyeyeball]

Aug 20, 2016 11:25:03 GMT -5 colinsfebmommy said:

Aug 19, 2016 7:00:40 GMT -5 creepyeyeball said:

I would, but homeschooling is illegal. Boo!

Seriously!?!? Why?

Hitler banned it back in the day and the law was never changed. Most socialist countries ban homeschooling - the government cannot indoctrinate your children if they are home Seriously though, the more liberal or socialist a country is, the less homeschool-friendly they are. It's just the mentality that the state is more qualified and has more power than families and individuals. In America, democracy, freedom of religion, and parental rights are valued more - at least for now.

[expatmama]

Or the flip side to the argument is that all children have the right to an education. Sweden has recently cracked down a great deal on homeschooling due to the fact that they found religious extremists were using it to keep girls from accessing education and that many religious schools were not teaching basic science skills (Both Muslim and Christian schools).

They found it too hard to continue to monitor these situations along with homeschooling so they have created a school mandate for all children between the ages of 7-16 unless there are extraordinary circumstances and set heavy fines for any private schools that did not follow the national curricula. I think this went through in 2010. As long as the private schools follow the curricula they can add the extra subjects and focus that they want.

I am not against homeschooling if done properly and it is checked up on through mandatory testing, but I do think every child has a right to an education and education cannot just mean 'what ever your parents decide is the thing to learn'.
Your family can tell you what they do or don't agree with and teach you all the values they want. I personally think giving kids access to an equal education is the most democratic thing you can do.

[creepyeyeball]

Didn't mean to start a homeschooling debate. Everyone is entitled to their opinions. I'm just thankful to live in the good old USA where my parental right to oversee the education of my children is protected. Until the government schools get their you know what together and start ranking with other countries in terms of quality of education and outcomes, I laugh at the idea that the government should be able to determine what's best for my children or have any say in whether or not I am qualified to do it. Their qualifications aren't serving them very well. Democracy is about freedom to choose what's best for my children, at least to me. The government has a pretty piss poor record when it comes to education, in my eyes. But you're talking to an advocate for dismantling the Dept of Ed and creating more school choice at the local level, so we'll probably never see eye to eye on this one.

Dead serious, if they take away my right to homeschool we will be moving deep into Amish country.

[crimsonandclover]

Aug 20, 2016 12:39:12 GMT -5 creepyeyeball said:

Aug 20, 2016 11:25:03 GMT -5 colinsfebmommy said:

Seriously!?!? Why?

Hitler banned it back in the day and the law was never changed.

False. From 1938-1945 there was a separate Reichschulpflichtgesetz (Reich Mandatory Schooling Act), but mandatory schooling (as opposed to the freedom to homeschool) was instituted with the Weimar Constitution in 1919. I don't agree with the prohibition on homeschooling, but saying "Hitler did it and the Germans never got around to changing it" is highly misleading, IMO.

[dc2london]

I disagree that the US values democracy and parental rights more than socialist nations . I would argue that they value those things just as much, but take a different approach to protecting them.

[creepyeyeball]

Aug 21, 2016 13:38:20 GMT -5 crimsonandclover said:

Aug 20, 2016 12:39:12 GMT -5 creepyeyeball said:

Hitler banned it back in the day and the law was never changed.

False. From 1938-1945 there was a separate Reichschulpflichtgesetz (Reich Mandatory Schooling Act), but mandatory schooling (as opposed to the freedom to homeschool) was instituted with the Weimar Constitution in 1919. I don't agree with the prohibition on homeschooling, but saying "Hitler did it and the Germans never got around to changing it" is highly misleading, IMO.

Well, but it is true that Hitler and the Third Reich added criminal penalties that were never changed when they were no longer in power. Those penalties still exist today. Compulsory school has been a thing since the late 1800's, but it wasn't criminalized until Hitler.

[creepyeyeball]

Aug 21, 2016 13:42:18 GMT -5 dc2london said:

I disagree that the US values democracy and parental rights more than socialist nations . I would argue that they value those things just as much, but take a different approach to protecting them.

Yeah, I guess it depends on which rights you value. When I think of parental rights I think of the right to educate them as I see fit or raise them with the religious values I want them to have. Or to have control over healthcare decisions. Most socialist nations do not support these rights, so I don't feel like they value parental rights more than they value collectivism or the greater good. To me, democracy is the opposite of socialism. Socialism caters to the group and democracy, or at least the Republic outlined in our Constitution, caters to individual rights first and foremost. The two are kind of polar opposites. In a democracy the government works for the people. In socialism, we belong to the government.

[kleigh926]

I feel like I'm kind of in the middle of the schooling issue. I know some families who homeschool very poorly and I have a problem with that. Even though I personally don't plan to homeschool, I support parents' rights to do it, but I think it needs to be closely monitored to make sure that kids are actually getting a decent education in the basics.

[expatmama]

Can we please remember that these countries are also democracies. They have established social welfare systems, but are not socialist states and have not been for a very long time

fee.org/articles/the-myth-of-scandinavian-socialism/

You can have a democratically elected leader and support the government providing social programming and legislating broadly without being socialist. 

[crimsonandclover]

Aug 22, 2016 0:15:41 GMT -5 expatmama said:

Can we please remember that these countries are also democracies. They have established social welfare systems, but are not socialist states and have not been for a very long time

fee.org/articles/the-myth-of-scandinavian-socialism/

You can have a democratically elected leader and support the government providing social programming and legislating broadly without being socialist. 

This.

creepyeyeball, I don't really understand how you're dichotomizing democracy and socialism when one is a form of government (in contrast to monarchies or authoritarian systems in which the people don't get to choose their government) and the other is an economic system (in contrast to capitalism). They are not mutually exclusive nor can they be put at two ends of a spectrum ranging from "democratic" to "socialist." Instead you have two spectrums: one ranging from democratic to authoritarian (e.g. the Polity indices) and one ranging from capitalist to socialist. A form of government that is far on the democratic side of the spectrum can still have economic policies that tend toward the socialist side of the economic system spectrum. Whether it *should* or not is a different matter, and one that we disagree on.

[beenandgone]

Aug 21, 2016 14:44:08 GMT -5 kleigh926 said:

I feel like I'm kind of in the middle of the schooling issue. I know some families who homeschool very poorly and I have a problem with that. Even though I personally don't plan to homeschool, I support parents' rights to do it, but I think it needs to be closely monitored to make sure that kids are actually getting a decent education in the basics.

And sometimes, even with all the tools and techniques, homeschooling just isn't the right decision.

<-------------

I tried for 2 years, and a good part of it was having 2 demanding toddlers and a marginally supportive spouse, but I failed at homeschooling DD1—and I have a Masters in Teaching. I 100% believe if my H had been more supportive of homeschooling, we would have been more successful.

But I completely support the right to homeschool, but completely agree that there are people who do so poorly-at the expense of children. However, the flip side is the number of people who do successfully homeschool, and get nothing but crap and negativity for doing so. I was homeschooled until my last year in high school when I needed a credit in science and the new high school wouldn't accept the 9 credits of college level biology and anatomy & physiology to fill that requirement. It was a completely wasted year for me and did nothing but hold me back.

I don't feel that homeschooling *IN GENERAL* needs to be more closely monitored than other schooling. Consider the crazy number of public school students who fail or drop out. They've been "monitored" and failed. It's unfair to single out homeschoolers and pass edicts about extra supervision and monitoring. And who gets to decide what the appropriate basics are? Many homeschoolers choose to do so not because of objections over grammar and math, but over social conventions, and peer pressures and behaviors (and religious reasons, of course, but i don't want to start a religious debate).

My feelings regarding this are mixed, though. Clearly some people do a terrible job homeschooling. But I firmly feel that the mistakes of the few shouldn't be held against the whole.

[crimsonandclover]

Aug 21, 2016 13:48:07 GMT -5 creepyeyeball said:

Aug 21, 2016 13:38:20 GMT -5 crimsonandclover said:

False. From 1938-1945 there was a separate Reichschulpflichtgesetz (Reich Mandatory Schooling Act), but mandatory schooling (as opposed to the freedom to homeschool) was instituted with the Weimar Constitution in 1919. I don't agree with the prohibition on homeschooling, but saying "Hitler did it and the Germans never got around to changing it" is highly misleading, IMO.

Well, but it is true that Hitler and the Third Reich added criminal penalties that were never changed when they were no longer in power. Those penalties still exist today. Compulsory school has been a thing since the late 1800's, but it wasn't criminalized until Hitler.

True. But in 1973 the criminal penalties (which, by the way, are generally fines but in theory could include jail time) were reaffirmed with the fourth revision of the Criminal Code when the provision under which violating mandatory schooling usually falls was changed from being a sub-section (170d) to its own section (171). So it's not that the Germans just haven't gotten around to changing an edict from Hitler. They went through it and decided to keep it.
Actually, it's the section that covers parental neglect in general, so it was a good thing to keep. State laws have then specified that violations of mandatory schooling fall under that section and the courts have confirmed that interpretation. Most recently the Federal Constitutional Court did in 2014 when it also rejected exceptions for religious reasons.

Again, I disagree with the rulings and think that it should be the parents' right to decide how their children should be educated. However, the Germans have not just forgotten to revise something Hitler thought up. They have debated it, legislated it, and many courts including the highest in the land have interpreted it. It is not fair to attribute it to Hitler because that obscures the reasons the current lawmakers and judges have chosen to uphold it.

[creepyeyeball]

OK, I retract my Hitler statement. Sorry to offend the Germans.

And we can all just agree to disagree on socialism. I feel it has no place in democracy. As I mentioned above, in a democracy the people lead the government. Under socialism, the government rules the people. When you start requiring people to participate in government systems (like government schools), without the ability to opt out, the people no longer have the power. The government owns you and your children. The idea of democratic socialism is impossible.

[crimsonandclover]

Aug 22, 2016 7:39:07 GMT -5 creepyeyeball said:

OK, I retract my Hitler statement. Sorry to offend the Germans.

And we can all just agree to disagree on socialism. I feel it has no place in democracy. As I mentioned above, in a democracy the people lead the government. Under socialism, the government rules the people. When you start requiring people to participate in government systems (like government schools), without the ability to opt out, the people no longer have the power. The government owns you and your children. The idea of democratic socialism is impossible.

Democracy means the rule of "the people", not rule of "each person". De Tocqueville described democracy as the "tyranny of the majority" meaning that the majority rules and the minority is subject to what the majority wants. In theory the majority is fair because there is always the risk that they will end up as the minority at some point. Even in a democracy there are things you can't opt out of. When the government criminalizes certain actions, people can't "opt out" because they don't feel like following that particular law.

And you don't see a difference between an authoritarian leader dictating that a public healthcare system is to be implemented and a democratically elected government doing the same? In the second case the legislative bodies are intended to be a proportional representation of the people's will and therefore legislate according to that will (obviously this is theory - in reality there are disproportionately represented interests because of lobbying and non-voting populations). If the people don't like it, then in the next elections the legislators can be voted out of office and the new legislators can repeal the old legislation. In the first case, what the dictator says is what is to be done and nothing short of a coup will change that. In a lot of cases, he will rule until he dies and be succeeded by his son or another appointed successor who will continue the same policies. The people have no say.
In both cases the same socialist policy has been implemented, but I see an enormous difference in a democratically elected government and an authoritarian government doing so.

I also disagree with your last statement and at least the way you say it isn't a matter of opinion. You say the idea is impossible. However, if the people want socialist policies (I doubt a majority in the US would want to get rid of Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security benefits, or public schools without any government-funded replacement), and the people elect a government that implements or upholds those policies, how is that not democratic? I don't understand how you can say it's impossible since that assumes there will never be a majority of people who want socialist policies.

I hope, by the way, that you're not perceiving this as an attack. I'm enjoying the discussion and hope you are, too. If you're not, I'll stop.