Going Dutch
Someone posted this piece in the Washington Post by Mihal Greener, an Australian writer raising her family in Holland, on my Facebook page this morning. It made me want to cry. According to the April 2013 findings by UNICEF in their report 'Child well-being in rich countries: a comparative overview ', Dutch children are the happiest in the world. I'd heard about this report, and about Mihal Greener, a couple of years ago, when UNICEF first published this finding, but somehow it made a greater impact this morning. Perhaps it's because yesterday I stood in the dreary, wet playground and endured two mothers, one each side of me, making endless less-than-subtle digs about status, work and motherhood in the minutes before pickup, without ever actually asking each other a question . I'd had a very nice day, working from home, getting on with stuff. After five minutes of playground pleasantries, I felt like a collapsed balloon. Again...