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Week 4/ 2007: Baby life in France and Finland

Becoming a mother evokes in a woman many different emotions, and not all of them are positive. Family policies play a key role in everyday family life, and in France and Finland they are quite different.  

For Finnish women, having a baby means that they will take time off work for approximately a year. In comparison, maternity leave in France is short: it is commonplace that mothers of 3-month-old babies return to work and only half of French women breastfeed.

“It is traditional in France to find children under one year in daycare. For some Parisian mothers, returning to work so soon represents a welcome change after full-time motherhood,” says Heini Martiskainen de Koenigswarter.  

In her dissertation in the field of sociology, she has studied what comments are acceptable regarding motherhood experiences. Her study is based on interviews of new mothers in Helsinki and Paris.

There were two phrases that came up in many interviews. Finnish mothers would often say that staying at home is such a short and special time, which helps to put the demands of everyday life in perspective and to solve the conflict between the needs of small children and those of adults.  

In France, the more common stock phrases were ones expressing enjoyment.

“The phrase ‘je profite de mon enfant’, I enjoy or make the most of my child, seemed to be a must when describing life with a baby, even when conflicting emotions were evident,” the researcher says.

According to her, it is considered inappropriate to express negative thoughts and emotions concerning motherhood.

“The Finnish and French phrases both convey, in their own way, the legitimacy of expressions of enjoyment, and the unacceptability of complaints,” Martiskainen says.

Text: Arja-Leena Paavola
Photo: Juuli Hurskainen
www.helsinki.fi/digitalcommunications

Translation: Valtasana Oy