There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather Read online

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  CONTENTS

  Epigraph

  Glossary of Scandinavian Terms

  Introduction A Swedish Mother in Rural Indiana

  Chapter 1 A Right to Nature

  Chapter 2 Fresh Air Is Good for You

  Chapter 3 Just Let Them Play

  Chapter 4 We Must All Take Care of Nature

  Chapter 5 A Little Dirt Won’t Hurt (Nor Will a Little Rain)

  Chapter 6 Freedom with Responsibility

  Chapter 7 Outside, There Is a Better Connection

  Chapter 8 It Takes a Village

  A Scandinavian Mother’s “Get Up and Go Outside” Manifesto

  Acknowledgments

  References

  About the Author

  For Maya and Nora

  We have such a brief opportunity to pass on to our children our love for this Earth, and to tell our stories. These are the moments when the world is made whole.

  —RICHARD LOUV

  GLOSSARY OF SCANDINAVIAN TERMS

  allemansrätten—The right of public access, a common law that gives the general public in Sweden extensive rights to recreate in nature, including hiking, camping, and foraging for berries and mushrooms on private property. Slightly different versions of the law exist in Norway and Finland.

  allmän förskola—Sweden’s universal preschool system that offers part-time and full-time care all year-round at heavily subsidized rates.

  barnträdgård—The Swedish version of German Friedrich Froebel’s original kindergartens. Adopted in Sweden at the end of the nineteenth century and replaced by the universal preschool system in the 1950s.

  barnvagn—The type of sturdy pram that is favored by Scandinavian parents and frequently used for letting babies nap outdoors.

  educare—A term that is sometimes used to describe the Scandinavian model of simultaneously caring for and educating preschool-age children whose parents work outside the home.

  farfar—Paternal grandfather.

  farmor—Paternal grandmother.

  fika—A casual get-together that usually involves coffee or tea and a pastry. Popular activity for moms and dads on parental leave.

  forest school—Preschools/day cares where children spend most of the day playing and learning outdoors, all year-round, regardless of the weather. Also known as forest kindergarten or nature-based preschool in the US.

  friluftsliv—Roughly translates to “open-air life” and is used to describe a culture and a way of life that heavily revolve around exploring and enjoying nature in a noncompetitive fashion.

  fritids—A subsidized after-school program for school-age children in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway that generally offers arts and crafts, games, physical activity, homework help, and outdoor play.

  galonisar—Polyester rain pants that typically come in the form of overalls and are essential for protecting both child and regular clothes during messy outdoor play.

  hygge—The Danish way of fighting the long, dark winter by creating a cozy atmosphere and enjoying the good things in life with friends and family. Often involves lighting candles.

  inskolning—The process of gradually easing a child into a preschool routine, during which time a parent accompanies the child to the preschool for the entire day or part of the day. Depending on the child, this process can take anywhere between a few days to several weeks.

  midsommar—A celebration of the summer solstice in June that involves dancing around a maypole, singing traditional songs, and making flower wreaths. Rivals Christmas as the most popular holiday in Sweden.

  morfar—Maternal grandfather.

  mormor—Maternal grandmother.

  mula—Popular childhood pastime that involves shoving snow in an unsuspecting person’s face.

  Mulle—An imaginary forest troll that inspires children to care about nature, created by the Swedish Outdoor Association in the 1950s. Can also be used in a generic way to describe somebody who is extremely outdoorsy or “crunchy.”

  saft—A sweet, typically berry-flavored drink popular with children, especially in the summertime.

  school forest—Privately owned woods set aside for use by preschools and schools for outdoor play and learning. Typically permits activities that go beyond allemansrätten, such as marking trails and building shelters.

  Skogsmulle—(See “Mulle”)

  skolefritidsordning—(Danish. See “fritids”)

  solfattig—“Sun poor.” A term frequently used by meteorologists to describe Scandinavian summers.

  udeskole—Danish for “outdoor school.” A cross-disciplinary approach to teaching in which children between the ages of seven and sixteen learn outside on a regular basis.

  uppehållsväder—The Swedish term used to describe a brief pause between two rainy periods.

  valborg—An annual Swedish celebration of the spring that occurs on April 30 and usually involves choral singing, racy student parades, and bonfires.

  öppna förskolan—Swedish for “open preschool,” a free program that offers a meeting place for parents on leave and provides developmentally appropriate activities for babies and children of up to five years.

  INTRODUCTION

  A Swedish Mother in Rural Indiana

  “I don’t want to go outside.”

  My four-year-old daughter Nora is standing in the mudroom, heels dug into the floor, lips pouting, and arms crossed in protest.

  Her sister, seven-year-old Maya, chimes in:

  “Do we have to, Mommy?”

  They look like I just asked them to clean their rooms or, worse, offered them a bowl of fermented brussels sprouts.

  “I want to watch a movie instead.”

  “But there’s fresh snow on the ground. SNOW! Do you want to build a snowman?” I sing, channeling my inner Anna, betting that their obsession with all things Frozen will win them over. I know that if I can only get them outside they will soon start rolling around in the snow and quickly forget all about Barbie: A Fashion Fairytale. The hard part is getting there.

  “It’s cold outside!” Maya moans. “Why do we always have to go outside?”

  At this point I’m tempted to tell them all about how we used to play way back when the TV had only two stations (neither of which showed cartoons, except on Saturday mornings), computer games had to be loaded from a cassette tape, and I had to walk three miles to school with snow up to my knees, uphill both ways. Instead, when I open my mouth, my first-grade teacher comes out.

  “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes!” I blurt out a little too cheerily in my attempt to conceal my growing annoyance.

  The kids stare at me in utter disbelief. Then Nora screams, “I hate my snow pants!” and throws herself on the floor, kicking off her new insulated pants, inchworm-style.

  Deep breaths. Count to ten.

  “How about we try going outside for fifteen minutes and see what it’s like? Then we can decide whether to stay out a little longer or go back inside.”

  With this compromise in place, we finally head out the door, into the cold February morning. I’m already sweating from the effort of putting snow pants, boots, a fleece jacket, mittens, a winter jacket,
a neck gaiter, and a hat on a squirming child, and slightly exhausted from the heated negotiations. And I can’t help but wonder what the heck is wrong with kids these days—why don’t they want to play outside?

  We drive down to the local city park in the small Midwestern town I call home. The air is brisk, the sky a saturated cobalt blue. We see a couple of squirrels chasing each other up a tree on the way. Aside from that, we might as well be walking on the moon. There are no cars on the streets, no children outside, no sounds. The town is literally shut down. The night before, the weather forecast had called for a chance of one to three inches of snow. In anticipation of being pounded with snow, sleet, and ice, people rushed home from work to fill up their generators and get last-minute staples from the store. By the end of the night, the bread and milk aisles at Walmart looked like a Cold War–era shopping mall in Moscow. The area schools announced that they were going to be on a two-hour delay, and most nonessential activities were canceled preemptively. Come morning, the schools’ planned two-hour delay had turned into a full closure—better known as a “snow day”—and the local government had shut down as well.

  Everywhere we go, including the park’s small sledding hill, the snow is virtually untouched. Initially, Maya and Nora are too excited about the dusting of snow to pay attention to the compact silence. The girls make fresh tracks in the downy powder and throw themselves on the ground to make snow angels, giggling and talking nonstop. Then Maya, who by now has forgotten all about the mudroom drama and her own vocal protests, looks around and notices that something is awry. “Mommy, where are all the other kids?” she asks. “Why aren’t they at the park?”

  Her question brings me back to a different time and place. I was born and raised in Sweden, in a town that is on roughly the same latitude as the Gulf of Alaska. Growing up, my friends and I spent our free time mostly digging in dirt, climbing trees, collecting slugs, racing our pet rabbits, bruising our legs, and crisscrossing the neighborhood on our bikes. In the winter, we skied, skated, rode sleds down steep tree-lined hills, ate snow from those same hills, built forts of questionable quality, and occasionally entertained ourselves with shoving snow in unsuspecting peers’ faces (an act commonly referred to as mula).

  At preschool, we played for hours outside every day, rain or shine, and at elementary school, indoor recess was only allowed if there was a realistic chance of death by lightning. We knew that whining about it was pointless. We were expected to dress for the weather and endure the elements. And as we headed toward the small woods that bordered our school yard we quickly forgot about the inclement weather as sticks turned into horses, trees became castles, and we immersed ourselves in pretend play.

  At the time, research about nature’s positive effects on the well-being of children (and adults, for that matter) was in its infancy, but the adults in our lives still instinctively knew the benefits of a walk in the woods. If anybody had asked them why they made us play outside every day, the answer would likely have been as simple as it was obvious: “Because fresh air is good for you.”

  Scandinavia’s nature-centric culture, embodied in the term friluftsliv (which loosely translates to “open-air life”), is not just the sum of all outdoor activities people take part in. It’s a way of life that to this day is considered key to raising healthy, well-rounded, and eco-conscious children. As research supporting the health benefits of spending time in nature has emerged, more and more schools and nurseries in Scandinavia have been making outdoor time a priority. Recess, most of which is spent outside, already makes up approximately 20 percent of the school day in Sweden. Many schools are moving more of their instructional time outside as well. Forest schools—nurseries where children spend the better part of the day outside, all year-round—are an increasingly popular choice among nature-loving parents.

  In Sweden, nature is not an abstract concept that is taught only on Earth Day and through textbooks about bees and butterflies. It’s an integral part of everyday life. Daily interaction with nature has helped turn many children, myself included, into passionate advocates for the environment. Not surprisingly, Scandinavia is also a world leader when it comes to renewable energy, recycling, and sustainable living.

  Until I moved to the US and had children myself, the concept of playing outside every day was so ordinary to me that I thought it was a universal parenting practice. But as my children grew older and I stood in many more deserted playgrounds, in summer as well as winter, I started to realize that playing outdoors is not the norm here—at least not anymore. Even though most parents and educators recognize the benefits of unstructured outdoor play, research shows that this generation of children plays outside significantly less than their parents did. One cross-sectional study representing four million children in the US showed that roughly half of all preschoolers don’t have daily outdoor playtime, even though the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends encouraging “children to play outside as much as possible.” Older children don’t fare much better, with digital entertainment on average now eating up nearly fifty-three hours of their time every week. By the time they reach their teens, only 10 percent of American children report spending time outside every day, according to the Nature Conservancy.

  Meanwhile, many schools are cutting recess to cram more required instruction into a day that hardly had any free time to begin with, not even for the youngest students. Cities are banning sledding out of fear of lawsuits. At home, fear of traffic, abduction, and nature itself, coupled with frenzied extracurricular schedules, is keeping more and more children inside, where they are becoming increasingly dependent on screens for entertainment. Streets and parks that used to teem with children are now empty. Simultaneous with this development, obesity, diabetes, and ADHD and other behavioral problems have become rampant, with American children now being three times more likely to be medicated with stimulants and antidepressants than their European peers.

  But what if more toddlers spent their days watching real birds instead of playing Angry Birds on their iPads? What if more kindergartners actually got to grow gardens? What if more schools increased the length of recess instead of the number of standardized tests? And what if more children who act out were allowed to get out?

  Standing at this empty playground in the rural Midwest, I decide that it’s time for a fact-finding mission. It’s been twelve years since I left Scandinavia and more than twenty-five since I was a child there, so the culture has undoubtedly changed in profound ways since then. Do people over there still know how to raise healthy, nature-loving children in an increasingly high-tech world, and, if so, how do they do it?

  Could the Scandinavians in fact be onto a great parenting secret?

  1

  * * *

  A RIGHT TO NATURE

  The wild is a voice that never stops whispering.

  —DANIEL CROCKETT

  When I went to Perth, Australia, as an exchange student in college, I really didn’t expect to come back with much more than a great tan and a backpack full of good memories. Instead, I returned with a boyfriend from rural Indiana. On one of our first dates, he told me that as a child he used to build dams with debris in the creek in his backyard. In a different creek in Sweden, I used to clear the debris from the stream so that the water could flow freely. We were immediately drawn to each other.

  As it turns out, the unlikely union between a Swedish environmentalist and a Midwestern industrialist had more staying power than our families would ever have imagined, and after we graduated we decided to move to Montana, where my husband had spent many of his school holidays skiing with his family. Fresh out of journalism school, I got my first job working for a start-up internet business that might as well have served as the inspiration for the movie Office Space, complete with soulless cubicles, mysterious forms, and disgruntled white-collar employees, who were all kept in check by an overzealous supervisor. Still, the move was a smooth transition for me. The mountains reminded me of home, the wildlife was spectacular, an
d the intensity and length of the winters rivaled those of my homeland.

  Bozeman, where we lived, was in the middle of a transition from sleepy ranching community with world-class fly-fishing waters to hipster college town and up-and-coming vacation spot for people from all over the US. This change was not well received by everybody, but with my Scandinavian lineage and experience with harsh weather I fit the mold of a “true” Montanan and was readily accepted by the locals. In contrast, anybody who was the slightest bit hesitant to driving in heavy snow or complained about the cold was jokingly dismissed as a “Californian,” whether they were actually from the Golden State or not. Ironically, most of the people who complained about out-of-staters were themselves from somewhere else. Being a Montanan, it turned out, was not so much about the stamp on your birth certificate but more of a state of mind. Success was not measured by how many steps you had climbed on the corporate ladder but rather by how many days you had spent in a tent instead of a cubicle. Wealth was not necessarily measured by the size of your bank account but by how much elk meat you had in your freezer. Skills were assessed not according to what you had learned from a textbook but by how you handled real-life challenges like how to avoid getting buried by an avalanche or attacked by a grizzly bear.

  I was clearly not in Sweden anymore. Most of the people I now hung out with put me to shame with their in-depth knowledge of nature and advanced wilderness survival skills. One thing was for sure: If I ever stood face-to-face with the Apocalypse I would grab onto a seasoned Montanan in a heartbeat and not let go.

  But I noticed that, parallel with this hard-core outdoor culture, there were forces at work in American society that seemed to create a divide between humans and nature. One of the first lessons I learned in my new homeland was that pretty much all the things I was used to doing either on foot or by using public transportation in Scandinavia could be done without ever exiting your car in Montana. Here, you could go straight from your comfortably heated or air-conditioned house in the morning to your equally comfortable climate-controlled car and drive to work. Actually, this was the only way to get to work unless you lived within walking or biking distance, since public transportation was nonexistent. At lunch, you could go to one of a slew of fast-food restaurants with a drive-through window, idle in line for ten minutes, and then inhale your lunch while running errands in your vehicle. Returning a movie at the video store? There was a drive-by box for that. Mailing a letter? No need to get out of the car. Buying a six-pack? Give your order to the guy at the drive-up window. Even bank errands could be done from the driver’s seat. At school, parents waited in their vehicles in a long, winding line until a teacher with a walkie-talkie called on their child to come outside. I had never seen anything like it.