Lazing about

The new head of Finland's Government Institute of Economic Research (Vatt), Juhana Vartiainen, has called home-parenting "lazing about" (velttoilu). He says, "all of us find it nice to be home but does this lovely lazing about need to be funded with taxpayers' money for as long as three years" (my translation). In Finland, parents are eligible for a child care benefit (kotihoidontuki) to look after child/-ren under the age of three. There's been a lot of debate about this benefit lately, whether it's too costly for society, whether it's even beneficial for small kids, whether it's actually negative or even detrimental to women's careers, etc. I myself have been on child care leave and withdrawn this benefit for about 9 months last year. The reason for us was primarily based on our belief that home care was the best care for our elder son at that age (2 to 2.5 years old) and in practice influenced by the fact that we lived in the countryside of one of the world's least developed countries where other childcare options were limited (nannies/au pairs hired elsewhere) or even non-existent (kindergartens). So for us it was the perfect choice, and, well, the only choice. We were thankful such a small but significant financial support system exists.

Mondulkiri scenes, Cambodia