The Hindu Business Line : The joys of Dutch childhood

To most visitors to The Netherlands, particularly Amsterdam, it would seem a place that spoils adults with decadent choice — a permissive society, soft drugs that can be had at any coffee shop and a red-light district that is the Dutch capital’s premier attraction. Yet, they don’t know half the story. For the really indulged in Dutch society are not the adults but the children. Some explanation may lie in the demographic profile of Europe, with a high med ian age. At 40, according to CIA World Factbook, the Dutch population is aging and needs an infusion of youth.

Over-indulgence of young

Thus, the celebration of children. No need to look at academic papers or seek empirical evidence; just step out of the house and observe the attention and indulgence children get. The patience of the parents is infinite. From splashing with the children in the shallow fountain waters at the park to riding alongside on bicycles or on tandem cycles. For the “it-is-the-same-everywhere” sceptics, attention can be drawn to a Unicef survey that rates Dutch children Europe’s most fortunate, and terms the children happy and well-adjusted.

But this apparently is nothing new. For, Gerrit Breeusma, head of development psychology at the University of Groningen, has told Isabel Conway of Independent newspaper that, “Families elsewhere only became child-centred from the 20th century onwards. But it was already the norm centuries earlier in Holland…Look at the masterpieces of our Dutch family scenes by Jan Steen in the 1600s.” As early as the 17th century, visitors were both surprised and disconcerted by what was then perceived as Dutch over-indulgence of their young, he says.

With the family relationships very liberal, “there are no holds barred and few taboos that cannot be discussed and chewed over the dinner table in Holland.” Especially the baby-boomer generation, which elsewhere seems to have failed to connect with the GenNext, “has learnt to get on really well with the children,” perhaps learning from the “family conflicts of the 1960s and early 1970s,” Breeusma says.

Best place to grow up

Even while indulging their children, the parents are also making sure that they get good education. Indeed, The Netherlands topped a Unicef survey on the schooling aspect. All this, according to an Independent report, is thanks to the parental choice in education enshrined in the Dutch constitution. It assumes that one size does not fit all, considering the huge number of ethnic minorities and children turning up to school without any Dutch. But there is choice, and the Dutch children are in the upper quartile of the international tables, which is why the Netherlands is rated as the best place for a child to grow up in the developed world.

Another Independent newspaper report explains how the Dutch system works: “Each pupil has a price tag, and the cost of educating a child goes directly to the school that the parents have chosen, state or private, from the Ministry of Education. Not all the price tags are the same; they’re weighted according to a child’s socio-economic background, so that the child of an asylum seeker who doesn’t speak any Dutch will have a relatively larger price tag to account for the extra services he or she might need.

“All schools have to be approved by the Ministry of Education, but as long as that approval is gained, a group of parents can set up a new school in the full knowledge that all pupils come with a price tag and the local council will provide the school building. The government controls staffing levels and pay. Schools are monitored by the Ministry of Education and the national curriculum must be taught and exams taken. “But how the curriculum is taught is up to the school and a staggering 70 per cent of children attend independent schools…This means there are a lot of different styles of schools: Steiner, Montessori, international/bilingual (generally more expensive) and faith schools. There really is a great deal of choice and no such thing as a catchment area.”

Such “choice and accessibility means parents are in the driving seat; if they choose not to send their children to a school because it’s underperforming, then the school will eventually have to reform or close because it won’t get enough price tags and the building will go to another school. It is the parents who decide the fate of schools rather than the government. Not constrained by catchment areas, they can choose whichever school will suit their child best.”

The problems

Yet (there is always the ‘yet’ or ‘but’) there are problems with the teens. The Dutch practice of offering maximum freedom and minimum responsibility has, according to many, turned a whole generation into spoilt, undisciplined

The Independent report cites a worried parent thus: “It’s like they are in control of things, liberalism taken too far, because children need to have borders and be taught some responsibility early on; but that doesn’t happen here, in my experience.”

The Dutch police too think the same. In a bid to counteract underage binge drinking, police have taken to bringing home teenagers, and confronting parents with their drunken teenage children, threatening them with obligatory attendance at courses on excessive alcohol problems or hefty fines unless they control their offspring. With the problem not yet assuming proportions as in other societies, it would still seem a good life to be a Dutch child.

(The author, a Business Line Deputy Editor, is on sabbatical in Amsterdam.)