{"id":49,"date":"2015-06-05T12:45:53","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T12:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.americanmaninfinland.com\/?p=49"},"modified":"2022-05-16T18:59:52","modified_gmt":"2022-05-16T18:59:52","slug":"work-life-balance-in-finland-americans-on-a-different-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taughtbyfinland.com\/work-life-balance-in-finland-americans-on-a-different-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"Work-Life Balance in Finland: Americans on a Different Planet"},"content":{"rendered":"
My wife and I welcomed our second child into the world exactly two weeks ago. If I was still teaching in the U.S., I\u2019d be back in the classroom by now.<\/p>\n
In Finland, fathers are granted 18 days of paid paternity leave. When our first child (Misaiel) was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I took three personal days away from school. At the time, I thought this was a fair-sized chunk. And then, nearly two years later, I experienced life in Finland.<\/p>\n
From three weeks of paid paternity leave to free health care to free higher education, I feel as if I’ve moved to a different planet. But these social policies, although generous, aren’t the things that have most impressed me about living in Finland.<\/p>\n
More than anything else,\u00a0I’ve been refreshed by the Finnish\u00a0approach\u00a0to\u00a0balancing\u00a0the demands of work and life. Finns work hard, but they work within limits and pace themselves.<\/em><\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n