Caitlin Ford

“By contrast, Nordic societies have decided to free parents from this burden as it is good for all the individuals and institutions involved: employers, parents, and—not least, of course—the children themselves. Thanks to the Nordic theory of love, every parent in Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark has easy access to inexpensive, convenient day care, publicly subsidized and generally paid for on a sliding scale according to a family’s income. Access to day care begins as soon as parents complete their initial parental leaves, and day-care centers are regulated to ensure high quality. Privately run day care is certainly also available in many places, if parents prefer that option.”
― Anu Partanen, The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life

“Yes, Finland and the United States are different. But consider the fact that most American education is managed by the states. Finland’s population of 5.5 million is easily comparable to many an American state. In fact, more than half of America’s states—thirty of them—have populations smaller than Finland’s. Solely on the question of size, there’s no reason any number of states in the United States couldn’t implement a system just like Finland’s.”
― Anu Partanen, The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life

“It’s an unfortunate fact that the United States remains astonishingly backward compared to almost all other advanced Western countries when it comes to education, because in America, what predicts how well a child will do in school is not a child’s aptitude or hard work, but the status of the child’s parents—which is to say, their own levels of education and wealth.”
― Anu Partanen, The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life

“Nordic societies recognize that for individuals to give fully to their jobs as employees and as parents, they need time to rest, recuperate, and just enjoy each other’s company. This means giving workers—all workers, at the top and the bottom—substantial paid vacations every year.”
― Anu Partanen, The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life