Cari amici,
Between book tasks for my forthcoming novel, How Long a Shadow, and preparations for the upcoming performances of Teatro Immediato (March 14 and 15, 5:30pm, Oratorio di Sant’Antonio Abate, Perugia, if you’re interested), I’m swamped with work. So I’m letting myself off easy this time by sharing with you the responses from a very clever bunch over at Threads, who saw the question below as an opportunity to get creative. Tutti sono bravissimi! (I’d credit them if I had any idea who they are.)
Other than a few spelling and punctuation changes, the responses are unedited. I’d direct you to the thread, but the original poster took it down. Not surprising.
Just curious, what do Europeans in cities do with their kids on the weekends? Do they have to entertain them the whole time?
And now, for your reading pleasure, the completely serious and definitely not sarcastic answers, sorted by country. (Warning: don’t drink any beverages while reading these.)
Well, Europe is a big place so it very much depends on where you are. In Spain it’s hot so children sleep through most of the weekend. Here in the UK it’s always raining so mostly the kids are busy maintaining the flood barriers around the house (it’s an all-hands-on-deck kind of job, that). In Romania they have vampire patrols and all kids over the age of 8 are enrolled. In Italy, of course, they make the fresh pasta batch for the week ahead, no one could stay on top of that otherwise.
In Austria, we leave them in a café with a Sachertorte and a newspaper. That’s basically parenting here.
In Austria, they make their own play clothes out of curtains, then in the evenings they sing and dance to entertain the wealthy elite. Sometimes they outsmart Nazis.
Each LEGO piece in the world is hand-built by a Danish child. You do the math. They don’t get a lot of free time.
In Denmark we personally entertain our children all weekend. Saturday: breakfast at 7, then we perform Hamlet (all five acts). We rotate roles, obviously. Lunch at intermission. Dinner during the monologues. Afterwards we lead a short discussion on mortality and moral doubt. Sunday we keep it light—live history reenactments and a little introductory philosophy.
In London Mary Poppins picks them up on Friday and drops them off again on Sunday evening.
The main problem in the north is stopping the different Morris gangs [from] getting into street dance-offs. Think West Side Story with more jingling.
In the UK they have Saturday jobs to earn pocket money. One of the most common jobs is chimney sweeping, where we send them up chimneys to clean them.
In Britain, we hibernate during winter, then pull out the maypoles in March, in preparation for the monthlong Morris Dancing wars, whereby each county sends its best child performer to compete, and the winner is the last one left alive by Whitsun. Afterwards we all have a cup of tea and biscuits, then we all perform one last ritual: the obligatory slapping of thighs, followed by the proclamation: “Right, we’d better be off then.”
England here. Children are expected to sing “God Save the Queen” perfectly before morning crumpets. The rest of the morning is spent playing cricket in the rain. After queuing for afternoon tea they have dialogue practice of moaning about the weather, apology practice, and if they’ve behaved well they get to watch a Punch and Judy show.
In the north of England, besides feeding pit ponies and digging coal out, we use them to clean the fluff of textile machinery whilst it’s still running. Weekdays they are at school or having limbs sewn back on at hospital.
In Finland, they spend the weekends in kiddie combat camps, to work on arctic survival skills and small explosives handling. We only raise Russian killers here. No time for fun frolicking with bears.
In Finland kids start heating the sauna right after breakfast. Simultaneously they prepare vihtas out of thin leafy birch branches for self-flagellation in the sauna. That goes on until the afternoon. When the sauna thermometer shows 100°C, they alert their parents. The whole family spends the rest of the day sweating in the sauna, dipping in the nearby lake, guzzling beer, eating sausages, and singing karaoke. In wintertime the lakes are frozen and the kids saw holes in the ice for dips.
Well, at 18:03 every Friday an accordion legally summons them into the square. The dramatic ones are forced to method-act scenes from Amélie. The athletic ones are plugged into the tram system as renewable energy. The quiet ones are posed as temporary art near the Eiffel Tower. By Sunday night they come back, a little braver, a little sharper, and ready for whatever Monday throws at them.
In France they start their day making baguettes at 4am, then we teach them how to use a guillotine and sew their own beret on Saturday. On Sunday we go on strike while sipping wine and complaining.
France here: at weekends we dress our kids up in stripey T-shirts and berets and teach them how to say cRRRRRoissant properly. And we indoctrinate them with Marxist theory so that when they become adults, they’ll keep our universal healthcare system going.
Well, here in Germany I just came back from a WW1 battlefield in Verdun to teach my kids not to invade France again. Next weekend we’re going to the usual local “please don’t genocide the minorities” museum.
Ireland here. We like to start Saturday with 27 decades of the rosary, then Eurovision practice, mass, a potato, another mass, river dance practice, another potato, then U2 veneration til bedtime. Sunday is chill: taking turns reading Ulysses in the morning, potato, weeping over colonial misery until dark, with another potato in their little hand to take to bed with them.
In Ireland it’s mainly dancing at the crossroads with your fifteen siblings, barefoot, until your mammy calls you home for bacon and cabbage. You then fall asleep cuddling a stick of turf and gazing at a picture of the pope while yer mam and dad have a blazing row over a jug of whiskey. Then back to school on Monday with the nuns.
In Ireland the kids are sent out to feed the leprechaun and fairies. Others are pedaling the bikes needed to get electricity for the houses. As we don’t have electricity or WiFi here. Otherwise we’d still be reading by candlelight and cooking over fires. Thank god for kid labour.
Here we send them off to the bogs to cut turf. We have coaches that pass through the cities collecting anyone under 15; they then spend fifteen hours working the bogs collecting the turf, which we use as leprechaun bait. The 15- to 18-year-olds are the leprechaun hunters. They trap them, collect their gold, and release them humanely back into the wild. Then we use the gold to run the country. Great system.
Entertain them? In Italy we hand them a soccer ball, a slice of pizza, and four random cousins and let the village handle the rest.
In Italy, they work on spaghetti farms on Saturday, harvesting fresh spaghetti for the Sunday lunch. On Sunday they have a weekly activity after mass. They can choose tarantella, mandolin, or mozzarella hunting.
In Italy we eat pizza, play mandolin, and make offers people can’t refuse.
In the Netherlands, we usually train our kids for the Dutch Hunger Games. There are twelve provinces, just like districts in Panem. Of course, they can’t train all weekend; in the South, they work in the mines, East is farming the land, West is planting tulips, and up North, we use them to build and maintain our dikes. All this while the grownups smoke weed and walk around on clogs.
In Norway, we throw them out in the snow, force skis on their feet, and make them train for the winter Olympics. How else do you think Norway got to be that good!? Indoctrination from an early age is the only way. Right now, my 4-year-old is teaching my 18-month-old how to do slalom down the mountainside. As it should be.
In Norway we decide who gets the Nobel peace prize. All weekend.
In Scotland we do morning caber-tossing—the wee ones start with fenceposts and graduate up to full tree trunks. Might go to the petting zoo to see baby haggis.
Well, first up we sing old rebel songs whilst throwing darts at pictures of King Charlie (helps with their hand-eye coordination). Then we trim their flowing ginger beards before hunting a Haggi for breakfast. After that it’s kilt weaving and claymore sharpening. In the afternoon we practice Highland dancing. Before our evening repast, we study the poetry of Burns. After that it’s a quick trip over the English border to pillage some livestock. A wee dram of whisky before they’re sent to bed.
In Spain we make them dance flamenco for family entertainment. And they learn bull fighting, eventually.
In Sweden we generally send them out to chase off the polar bears from the streets.
I lived in Switzerland for a bit and a typical Saturday looked like this: 5–8am, milking cows. 8–9am, yodeling practice. 9am–12pm, cheese making. Lunch (chocolate and cheese fondue). 1–5pm, watchmaking. 5–6pm, night yodeling. Then we’d all gather by the fire to complete our allotment of multifunction knives while sucking on Ricola until the cuckoo clock signaled bedtime.
Here in Wales, most children spend the weekends learning to fight alongside the Welsh dragon, just in case the king of England decides to spuriously invade. If the children excel at it, they’re allowed to pick wild daffodils to take home to their mums. The mums will shout in unison, “WHO’S COAT’S THAT JACKET??” Occasionally they are allowed to dress up as a giant leek, whilst eating a slice of warm buttered bara brith. Apart from that, they’re basically left to their own devices.
Honestly, we just put them to work. Do the dishes, clean the castle, dredge the moat, feed the horse. They get free food and housing; there has to be some sort of compensation for that.
We send them out into the countryside to solve mysteries with a dog, a full picnic basket, and lashings of ginger beer.
Since wolves are back in our area we send them into the wood with wine and cake to reenact “Little Red Riding Hood.” Those who survive have to make dinner!
I hope you got a laugh out of these because god knows we all need it.
Tante belle cose, alla prossima—
Cheryl
Return to Valetto by Damian Smith (highly recommended, as is his novel The Last Painting of Sara de Vos). Based on these two, I’ll definitely read his other books.
How Long a Shadow is available for preorder from Cynren Press. Other preorder/purchase options will be available later, from local and online retailers. I’ll keep you posted.
The Wild Impossibility is available here or at the usual sites—better yet, order it from your local bookstore. Another fab option is to ask your library to stock it. If you read it and like it, please tell your friends and/or leave a few lines of praise on any bookish site. You’d be surprised how much a rating or review helps authors. Baci!
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.