The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell

Author:Helen Russell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Icon Books

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Things I’ve learned this month:

Denmark shuts down in July

Holidays are good for you, but stay away too long and you’re dicing with divorce

…which is fine in Denmark. Everyone’s at it. And it may even make you happier

Danes do sex. A lot. And they’re refreshingly un-British about it

It’s possible to reach your mid-thirties without knowing what a glory hole is

Being pregnant can make you really cross (but you do get great hair)

8. August

The Kids are Alright

Having discovered, Jeremy Kyle-style, that I am already pretty far along in this pregnancy lark (the obvious signs having been absent, just to clarify – my biology teacher wasn’t that bad), I am suddenly catapulted into the brave new world of parenting.

Lego Man and I are delighted; relieved that it’s even been possible for us and grateful that it’s happened. But we’re also terrified. Conversations around the homestead start to go something like this:

Me: ‘We’re having a baby. I’m growing an actual living creature. Inside me. Like in the film Alien. And we’re in a country where we still can’t speak the language. And I’m going to have to push out a watermelon in approximately five months. I’m Going To Have To Push Out A Watermelon. Or have something alarming done to me with knives. KNIVES!’

Lego Man: ‘I’ll never be an astronaut now. Or James Bond…’

Me, momentarily distracted from my woes: ‘Were either of those on the cards?’

Lego Man: ‘Well, no. But it was nice to know the options were there.’

I want to be supportive, really I do. But I can’t help suspecting that it isn’t just impending fatherhood that has deprived NASA and MI6 of my husband’s services.

I notice small, pink, squirming things wherever I go, and start seeing the prams routinely left outside cafés and restaurants in Denmark in a whole new light.

‘Danes just leave their babies in the street? Unsupervised?’ Lego Man asks incredulously, having only just clocked-on to this phenomenon. ‘Can you imagine this happening back home? Or anywhere, in fact?’

I recount a tale that American Mom told me about a Danish mother who left her baby outside a restaurant in New York while she ate and was promptly arrested for child neglect and abandonment.

‘God. Right. Good to know,’ is his response. The idea of taking such a risk with your baby seems bizarre, but this isn’t how Danes view it.

‘We trust each other,’ says Helena C, who, although happy for me, is mildly miffed that her every-other-Saturday-night wine wing-woman will be out of action for a while. ‘It’s like we plan for a positive outcome – we think, “let’s leave babies outside to sleep in their prams and get fresh air, which is good for their lungs” – rather than planning for the worst and thinking, “if I turn my back for a second, my baby might get stolen”. Plus people don’t steal babies in Denmark.’ Ah, the famous Danish ‘trust-in-the-system’ again, I think. Nothing bad ever happens in Denmark…

But because Helena C et al believe that their compatriots

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