So far, Denmark has shown me a lot of cultures but there is this one thing I can’t wrap my head around. Very literal language, different pronunciation of the same letters, Nordic cultures were very interesting, funny, and easy to understand. However, when it comes to children, rather infants, the culture here is somewhat different.
As we can all tell, it is human nature to be very protective of your children. At least that is what we all thought, right? Here in Denmark, the definition of this is a little bit different. Rather than having their children with them the whole time, when it comes to shopping and dining, Danish parents only make it halfway. They do take their children with them to the store or restaurant but when the time comes to enter the store or dine, they leave their kids outside by themselves in a stroller.
Now, you might think this should be fine during the summer as the children might be enjoying the view outside in the sun, right? But this culture goes year around, let it be summer, winter or fall. Even when it’s snowing, the kids are left outside stores and restaurants. This is something I just can’t understand. Since we have somewhat different cultures in the US and me, coming from an Asian family is just crazy to think leave your kids outside by themselves while you go shop or dine.
When I talked about this to some of my Danish friends, the reasons I got was things like there is no need to occupy extra space for the strollers, kids fall asleep faster in the cold and so on. “Child abductors? What are they?” was their response when I asked about that. This just had my mind blown. This is definitely something I was most surprised about. No matter where I go, how safe it is, I would definitely have my little siblings with me the whole time and looking at this, while it does seem convenient, it is just one of the interesting cultures I have seen. This is because the city of Copenhagen where I live, or anywhere in Denmark, it is extremely safe and the crime rates goes to almost zero. Being in such a country is just very nice and seeing these kind of cultures is very pleasing, somewhat interesting, and surprising.
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