Despite intending to postpone any further posts until I return to the Netherlands, I watched an item on the news this week and decided to add my five pennyworth of thoughts. According to a recent survey, Dutch children are the happiest in the world. Having also watched a programme a month or so ago about obesity, and how it just isn't happening in the Netherlands, I thought I'd also give my opinion on that too.
All this positive publicity might start you thinking that the Netherlands is actually a very sensible place to live, especially if you want content, slim kids. And to be honest, it probably is.
So what is the magic formula? According to the BBC news report, the happiness is all to do with family time, and according to Channel 4, the lack of obesity has a lot to do with cheese. When we first arrived in the Netherlands it was quite noticeable the amount of dads I saw out and about during the day with their kids. Talking to other ex-pats and making friends with Dutch-long-lifers, I soon learned that this was because a lot of parents only work four days a week enabling child-care to be shared by both parents. In fact a lot of Dutch people, of all ages, only work four days a week. My hairdresser, a young girl in her 20's, only worked four days a week. My cat-sitter, another young girl in her 20's, works in HR four days a week and cat-sits the rest of the time. Mr T (who has spent far too long working for a big American corporation) complains, quite regularly, that half his workforce only work four days a week, and they go home on time, and refuse to work weekends! They even take all their holiday allowance and take days off sick when they are sick. Heaven forbid. These people know to enjoy themselves. Or have they just got that work-life balance sorted out? That's the key.
Family time is important time. For example, Christmas isn't about buying each other lots of presents; its about being together. The first year we lived in the Netherlands I struggled to even find 'grown up' wrapping paper. Presents (and it is probably only one) are for children.
The Dutch don't wrap their kids up in cotton wool. You don't see kids being dropped off and picked up outside the school-gates in a 4x4. Right from the word go the school run is completed on two wheels, and if the little-ones are not trusted to make their own way to school, mum or dad will cycle alongside until they are. Dutch kids go 'out' to play - whatever the weather. There's no point stopping activities just because its raining. It rains an awful lot in the Netherlands. Dutch kids grow up balancing on the back of bikes, they grow up playing on the banks of canals, and they grow up living in houses with treacherously steep narrow stairs.
'How do you teach your kids to go up and down those stairs?' I can remember asking a Dutch mum quite early on.
'We put a mattress at the bottom,' she replied. 'And if they fall, they tend to fall only once.'
They either die, or learn to be more careful. Makes perfects sense. There are obvious risks, and there must be obvious accidents. But more importantly, they have freedom.
Dutch teenagers do have I-pads and I-phones and go to McDonalds, but they will also cycle to nightclubs, or the pub, or their after school-activity. And if you do have to catch a bus or train to work, you cycle to the station. You might even keep a second bike at your destination to complete the rest of your journey. And imagine doing the weekly grocery shop on your bike. You soon cut down on the amount of food you buy, and waste, when you have to carry it home in your paniers.
So the Dutch can eat lots of bread, and cheese and drink lots of milk, because not only do they burn it off with all this excessive activity, but apparently, calcium aids the dietary process as it interferes with the absorption of fat.
Personally, from my own forays into Dutch supermarkets I'd say there is far less choice and far less processed food than supermarkets in the UK, but that's obviously not such a bad thing. Maybe we have too much choice; everything is very convenient, and we've become very lazy.
No country is perfect, and the Netherlands is not without issues and problems of its own. But they have got a lot of things right. And they do have a great sense of humour (just check out the Dutch tribute to Donald Trump on You-tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELD2AwFN9Nc&feature=youtu.be ).
