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I love this, especially the inclusion of the book that helps new parents with the basics. Becoming a parent is such an overwhelming avalanche of advice (good a

I love this, especially the inclusion of the book that helps new parents with the basics. Becoming a parent is such an overwhelming avalanche of advice (good and bad) and piles of crap. There is a massive industry dedicated to preying on the paranoia and naïveté of new parents. With that first baby, you're awash in a sea of ridiculous products like microwave baby bottle sterilizers and electric bottle heaters. By the second or third month, you come to realize just how worthless all of this junk is and you toss most of it and go back to the basics--the basics that are included in the Finnish baby box. How much easier it would have been if someone had handed us a box and a book and said, "Everything you will need for the first three months is in here."

djrogers 10y ago
Everything you've said is true, however all you've done is given the state the responsibility of deciding what part of the avalanche of advice is good and what part is bad.
- steve-benjamins 10y ago
  Which might be sensible. As OP has suggested, the state may be better than the market at this.
  - ekianjo 10y ago
    Except when its not. Not talking about Finland here, but the amount of poor decisions in many areas related to welfare would suggest that mor often than not its a pretty bad idea to trust the state.
    - deong 10y ago
      It requires the ability to govern one's selves effectively, which we in the US have proven beyond all doubt we're not capable of doing.
- SamBam 10y ago
  The state is not out to make a profit. And you forget that in Scandinavian countries, the state is generally considered to be trusted by the citizens.
  - spacehome 10y ago
    Have those governments done more to earn that trust? I'm honestly asking. All I know is that I'm American, and I know mine hasn't.
    - duderific 10y ago
      The United States were born out of inherent distrust of authority. That distrust continues on to the present, at our own peril in many cases (inability to have true national health care for example). Other countries do not necessarily have that same history and so the trust does not need to be earned; it was probably already there in the first place (at least moreso than the US.)
      - spacehome 10y ago
        There's a significant fraction of Americans (myself included) who don't want their government to be in charge of healthcare. Don't assume that the lack thereof indicates an inability. Ninja Edit: I'm not going into the reasons why because that's not what this is about.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
        jdavis703 10y ago
        In charge of your health care or in charge of health care in general?
        spacehome 10y ago
        Both, probably. I've heard the argument that because health care (or insurance) is a necessity of life so it should be provided by the government. Why doesn't the same principle apply to food?
- cromulent 10y ago
  It's still your responsibility, even in Nordic countries :) All the state does is run the numbers and make sure the kid has what it needs, even if the parents have problems of some kind or another.
- nxcho 10y ago
  People in the nordic countries including Finland have more trust in government authorities and public administration compared to for example Americans. A government agency given the task to given the task to produce some kind of recommendation of best practices is expected to do so reasonably well.
  - jdavis703 10y ago
    Nordic countries are the size of American cities, or at least metropolitan areas. I can tell you I have a lot more trust in the mayor and city council than I do in the president and my senators (even though I voted for all of them). If most government functions occurred at a more regional level I'm pretty sure Americans would have more trust too. I think SF (for all its problems) is doing a good job showing what can be done at a local level. It's telling that at least in SF politicians are talking about fixing poverty, while this discussion never really even comes up at the federal level, especially this election season.
    - dsfyu404ed 10y ago
      That's a two way street. There's huge parts of the country where government at every level is regarded as corrupt and dysfunctional. When a higher authority (fed > state > town > individual departments > subgroup within a dept.) has to tell the offending institution to step in line it's usually very welcome. People being screwed tend to place their trust in the other parts of the government stack (the parts that haven't screwed them yet).
      - adamsea 10y ago
        Agreed. Take Flint, Michigan for example.
    - laurencerowe 10y ago
      While SF politicians seem to mean well, I have little confidence in the ability of the SF City Council to deliver as it is just a small part of the larger metropolitan area. Bay Area housing and transport problems can only be solved at a metropolitan level. Compare to New York and London which have political bodies covering the majority of their metropolitan areas. This enables them override the nimbyism and beggar-thy-neighbour policies of most Bay Area municipalities. Frankly, expectations for what government can achieve just seem far too low here. California seems constitutionally hobbled.
- bbctol 10y ago
  I'll take the government's advice over the advice of a profit-driven business nine times out of ten.
- __jal 10y ago
  Which works in nations where citizens take responsibility for their politics. In the U.S., we simply don't do that. ("Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.") To paint with a hugely broad brush, political problem-solving here is frequently about hurting others or the political version of Make.Money.Fast. schemes; in Nordic countries, politics is generally a lot more boring, but focused on actually fixing things.
Bulkington 10y ago
In the US, these are available from state health departments, although these services tend to be geared to the poor--not that rich babies are biologically different, but the wealthy tend to rely on private resources (because of a predisposition to avoid public health services--and poor people). http://www.healthyfamiliesnow.net/book-one-pregnancy-through-age-1 http://www.healthyfamiliesnow.net/book-one-pregnancy-through...
david-given 10y ago
I don't have children, thank god, but my brother does, and watching him deal with my nephews was instructive: Baby #1: aaaargh he's quiet we haven't looked at him for five minutes is he still breathing??? Baby #2: meh, let him play with knives on the kitchen table. If he falls off he'll bounce. I do think the baby box is a fantastic idea, and I agree with you about the reasons. The reassurance of knowing that that's all you need must make things so much easier.
- dsfyu404ed 10y ago
  >Parent #1: aaaargh he's quiet we haven't looked at him for five minutes is he still breathing??? >Parent #2: meh, let him play with knives on the kitchen table. If he falls off he'll bounce. Is a far bigger problem
  - serge2k 10y ago
    Never hear of hyperbole?
    - JeremyBanks 10y ago
      Perhaps you missed his modification to the speakers in his quote.
      - serge2k 10y ago
        ahahaha I did. :)
  - stevekemp 10y ago
    My wife is an A&E doctor, and when she used to work in the children's ward she'd see the same thing. First time parents were notorious for bringing in children because they'd "sneezed funny", "wouldn't stop crying", and similar things that were entirely normal.
Sharlin 10y ago
It also helps that the Nordic societies aren't quite as thoroughly consumerized as the US. The advertising is less in-your-face, consumption is regarded as less virtuous, there's less drive to purchase useless junk that only exists to make profit. There's a neologism in Finnish, "turhake", a useless product; the word is a play on "hyödyke", meaning a good (literally: "a thing with utility")
- pjlegato 10y ago
  This is a bit of a romantic way of viewing the situation. This non-consumerization of Scandinavia is not optional or voluntary at the individual level. It is imposed forcibly by the government on everyone, whether a particular individual actually wants to be more consumerized or not. Conformity to the top-down bureaucracy's state declaration of what constitutes "virtue" is mandatory. For example, outsiders often believe that shops close so early in Scandinavia because the locals just love spending time with their families rather than engaging in evil capitalist pursuit of still more money. Some indeed do; other shop owners would rather stay open late or open on Sundays, but they have no choice. They are legally required to close then, and will be heavily fined if they don't. Another example: extremely high taxes are specifically designed to make "luxury" items (which is just about anything other than basic foodstuffs) punitively expensive. A simple camera charger that costs $5 or 10 in the US costs €70 to 100 in Finland, due to "luxury" taxes.
  - stable-point 10y ago
    Does the government require this arbitrarily, or because that's the will of the people? Here in the UK, we have Sunday trading laws which limit how long shops can be open on a Sunday. These are reasonably popular (but not unanimously) because they ensure that shop workers have some guaranteed time with their family.
    - pjlegato 10y ago
      ... whether they want to or not. Whether some would prefer to have Friday, or Wednesday off instead of Sunday is irrelevant. The state has decided that having time off on Sundays is the only acceptable way of organizing one's life, and it is imposed by force on everyone uniformly. A democracy by definition is the will of the majority, the tyranny of the majority -- not the will of all the people in general. To the extent that a democratic society does not wish to be oppressive, its participants ought to choose to maximize respect for individual rights and personal decisionmaking -- not arrogate to themselves a paternal decisionmaking role that dictates moral virtues from above to everyone, whether they like it or not. Edit: incidentally, Sunday trading laws were not created to give people time with their families; that's a modern leftist retcon of the motive. Sunday trading laws are a relic of the medieval legal system, where they were created so that everyone could be required to attend church and receive moral instruction and sermonizing from a state-approved minister.
andrewwhartion 10y ago
I was living in Finland at the time we had our first child, we received one of these. I can tell you from first hand experience that what you've written was precisely the case for my wife and I. However, there's still plenty of companies there that want to guilt you into buying their stuff at a time when you're especially susceptible to it...
opk 10y ago
My wife is Finnish so we got one of these boxes. The piece of advice in that book I most liked was not to leave your baby outside to sleep when the temperature drops below -10 degrees C. So apparently at only -9 it's fine.
- Thimothy 10y ago
  In nordic countries is common to let babies sleep in the outside, in freezing temperatures. You would think is crazy, but not many seem to die from it. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21537988 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21537988

djrogers 10y ago

Everything you've said is true, however all you've done is given the state the responsibility of deciding what part of the avalanche of advice is good and what part is bad.

steve-benjamins 10y ago
Which might be sensible. As OP has suggested, the state may be better than the market at this.
- ekianjo 10y ago
  Except when its not. Not talking about Finland here, but the amount of poor decisions in many areas related to welfare would suggest that mor often than not its a pretty bad idea to trust the state.
  - deong 10y ago
    It requires the ability to govern one's selves effectively, which we in the US have proven beyond all doubt we're not capable of doing.
SamBam 10y ago
The state is not out to make a profit. And you forget that in Scandinavian countries, the state is generally considered to be trusted by the citizens.
- spacehome 10y ago
  Have those governments done more to earn that trust? I'm honestly asking. All I know is that I'm American, and I know mine hasn't.
  - duderific 10y ago
    The United States were born out of inherent distrust of authority. That distrust continues on to the present, at our own peril in many cases (inability to have true national health care for example). Other countries do not necessarily have that same history and so the trust does not need to be earned; it was probably already there in the first place (at least moreso than the US.)
    - spacehome 10y ago
      There's a significant fraction of Americans (myself included) who don't want their government to be in charge of healthcare. Don't assume that the lack thereof indicates an inability. Ninja Edit: I'm not going into the reasons why because that's not what this is about.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - jdavis703 10y ago
        In charge of your health care or in charge of health care in general?
        spacehome 10y ago
        Both, probably. I've heard the argument that because health care (or insurance) is a necessity of life so it should be provided by the government. Why doesn't the same principle apply to food?
cromulent 10y ago
It's still your responsibility, even in Nordic countries :) All the state does is run the numbers and make sure the kid has what it needs, even if the parents have problems of some kind or another.
nxcho 10y ago
People in the nordic countries including Finland have more trust in government authorities and public administration compared to for example Americans. A government agency given the task to given the task to produce some kind of recommendation of best practices is expected to do so reasonably well.
- jdavis703 10y ago
  Nordic countries are the size of American cities, or at least metropolitan areas. I can tell you I have a lot more trust in the mayor and city council than I do in the president and my senators (even though I voted for all of them). If most government functions occurred at a more regional level I'm pretty sure Americans would have more trust too. I think SF (for all its problems) is doing a good job showing what can be done at a local level. It's telling that at least in SF politicians are talking about fixing poverty, while this discussion never really even comes up at the federal level, especially this election season.
  - dsfyu404ed 10y ago
    That's a two way street. There's huge parts of the country where government at every level is regarded as corrupt and dysfunctional. When a higher authority (fed > state > town > individual departments > subgroup within a dept.) has to tell the offending institution to step in line it's usually very welcome. People being screwed tend to place their trust in the other parts of the government stack (the parts that haven't screwed them yet).
    - adamsea 10y ago
      Agreed. Take Flint, Michigan for example.
  - laurencerowe 10y ago
    While SF politicians seem to mean well, I have little confidence in the ability of the SF City Council to deliver as it is just a small part of the larger metropolitan area. Bay Area housing and transport problems can only be solved at a metropolitan level. Compare to New York and London which have political bodies covering the majority of their metropolitan areas. This enables them override the nimbyism and beggar-thy-neighbour policies of most Bay Area municipalities. Frankly, expectations for what government can achieve just seem far too low here. California seems constitutionally hobbled.
bbctol 10y ago
I'll take the government's advice over the advice of a profit-driven business nine times out of ten.
__jal 10y ago
Which works in nations where citizens take responsibility for their politics. In the U.S., we simply don't do that. ("Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.") To paint with a hugely broad brush, political problem-solving here is frequently about hurting others or the political version of Make.Money.Fast. schemes; in Nordic countries, politics is generally a lot more boring, but focused on actually fixing things.

Bulkington 10y ago

In the US, these are available from state health departments, although these services tend to be geared to the poor--not that rich babies are biologically different, but the wealthy tend to rely on private resources (because of a predisposition to avoid public health services--and poor people). http://www.healthyfamiliesnow.net/book-one-pregnancy-through-age-1 http://www.healthyfamiliesnow.net/book-one-pregnancy-through...

david-given 10y ago

I don't have children, thank god, but my brother does, and watching him deal with my nephews was instructive: Baby #1: aaaargh he's quiet we haven't looked at him for five minutes is he still breathing??? Baby #2: meh, let him play with knives on the kitchen table. If he falls off he'll bounce. I do think the baby box is a fantastic idea, and I agree with you about the reasons. The reassurance of knowing that that's all you need must make things so much easier.

dsfyu404ed 10y ago
>Parent #1: aaaargh he's quiet we haven't looked at him for five minutes is he still breathing??? >Parent #2: meh, let him play with knives on the kitchen table. If he falls off he'll bounce. Is a far bigger problem
- serge2k 10y ago
  Never hear of hyperbole?
  - JeremyBanks 10y ago
    Perhaps you missed his modification to the speakers in his quote.
    - serge2k 10y ago
      ahahaha I did. :)
- stevekemp 10y ago
  My wife is an A&E doctor, and when she used to work in the children's ward she'd see the same thing. First time parents were notorious for bringing in children because they'd "sneezed funny", "wouldn't stop crying", and similar things that were entirely normal.

Sharlin 10y ago

It also helps that the Nordic societies aren't quite as thoroughly consumerized as the US. The advertising is less in-your-face, consumption is regarded as less virtuous, there's less drive to purchase useless junk that only exists to make profit. There's a neologism in Finnish, "turhake", a useless product; the word is a play on "hyödyke", meaning a good (literally: "a thing with utility")

pjlegato 10y ago
This is a bit of a romantic way of viewing the situation. This non-consumerization of Scandinavia is not optional or voluntary at the individual level. It is imposed forcibly by the government on everyone, whether a particular individual actually wants to be more consumerized or not. Conformity to the top-down bureaucracy's state declaration of what constitutes "virtue" is mandatory. For example, outsiders often believe that shops close so early in Scandinavia because the locals just love spending time with their families rather than engaging in evil capitalist pursuit of still more money. Some indeed do; other shop owners would rather stay open late or open on Sundays, but they have no choice. They are legally required to close then, and will be heavily fined if they don't. Another example: extremely high taxes are specifically designed to make "luxury" items (which is just about anything other than basic foodstuffs) punitively expensive. A simple camera charger that costs $5 or 10 in the US costs €70 to 100 in Finland, due to "luxury" taxes.
- stable-point 10y ago
  Does the government require this arbitrarily, or because that's the will of the people? Here in the UK, we have Sunday trading laws which limit how long shops can be open on a Sunday. These are reasonably popular (but not unanimously) because they ensure that shop workers have some guaranteed time with their family.
  - pjlegato 10y ago
    ... whether they want to or not. Whether some would prefer to have Friday, or Wednesday off instead of Sunday is irrelevant. The state has decided that having time off on Sundays is the only acceptable way of organizing one's life, and it is imposed by force on everyone uniformly. A democracy by definition is the will of the majority, the tyranny of the majority -- not the will of all the people in general. To the extent that a democratic society does not wish to be oppressive, its participants ought to choose to maximize respect for individual rights and personal decisionmaking -- not arrogate to themselves a paternal decisionmaking role that dictates moral virtues from above to everyone, whether they like it or not. Edit: incidentally, Sunday trading laws were not created to give people time with their families; that's a modern leftist retcon of the motive. Sunday trading laws are a relic of the medieval legal system, where they were created so that everyone could be required to attend church and receive moral instruction and sermonizing from a state-approved minister.

andrewwhartion 10y ago

I was living in Finland at the time we had our first child, we received one of these. I can tell you from first hand experience that what you've written was precisely the case for my wife and I. However, there's still plenty of companies there that want to guilt you into buying their stuff at a time when you're especially susceptible to it...

opk 10y ago

My wife is Finnish so we got one of these boxes. The piece of advice in that book I most liked was not to leave your baby outside to sleep when the temperature drops below -10 degrees C. So apparently at only -9 it's fine.

Thimothy 10y ago
In nordic countries is common to let babies sleep in the outside, in freezing temperatures. You would think is crazy, but not many seem to die from it. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21537988 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21537988