Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Could not be more Icelandic !!


In how many countries could you do this..?

Leave your baby outside...warmly "cocooned" in its baby cart outside while you, mother or father are enjoying a nice cup ofcoffee... ? This is a typical Icelandic thing and i do think that you can only do this in Iceland. This is all time striking foreigners visiting Iceland...They wonder down town and see all those well parked baby carts parked outside... and parents inside "cafeining" themselves...

Foreigners who think that this is particularly cruel...think that...this is a sunny day...and we do the same on rainy days... or very cold day (-5) today...or snowy day?

With all the negative things that i heard about Iceland in the last few weeks, i was very glad to see and to share it with you !

Virgile

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Alors ça c'est vraiment surprenant vu d'ici ...Pourquoi ne rentre - il pas les bb au chaud avec eux ?
Et si l'un d'eux se met à pleurer comment l'entendent - ils ? Mais la photo est super je n'ai pas eu l'occasion de voir ça cet été !

Copenhagen said...

They do that in Denmark and other Scandinavian countries.

Virgile said...

The baby is not cold. it is usually wrap in several layers. If the baby cries, there is usually some kind of baby monitor next to him so Mummy or Daddy can rush outside if necessary !

Anonymous said...

ok !thanks for the explanations ;)

Cheltenhamdailyphoto said...

Though it makes a great photo, I could never do this, leave the baby outside and go in there. OOooooh nooooo! Too risky. I don't approve I'm afraid.

Cheltenhamdailyphoto said...

It's not the risk of cold I worry about particularly, but that the baby is unsupervised! Choking, sickness? Someone taking the pram? Brr. No. Is it legal there?

Virgile said...

This is legal and no one will be charged to do this. They are under carefull watch.. there is a baby monitor usually next to the baby and the parents try to seat next to the window ! This is fine. It seems strange..But Iceland is one of the rare country where you can leave children play outside safely !

Anonymous said...

You must be a very trustworthy people - I think people over here would be scared the baby would be abducted.

Sharon said...

This is amazing!!

Gerald (Ackworth born) said...

My mother always used to say that she left me outside in my pram (very well wrapped up) in the snow when I was a baby as that was the best way to get me to go to sleep - so I sympathise with and have no fear for these babies.

Hanne said...

This is normal in all of Scandinavia, putting your kid to sleep outside in the cold, but there was a case a couple of years back where a Danish woman living in New York left her kid outside a café (or something) and was arrested and charged (- with something negligence? putting the child at risk? )
When in Rome, do as the Romans...

Matt said...

We saw this last year when we were in Iceland. It was 5 C outside but parents had no problem with wrapping them up and leaving them outside. Certainly a curiosity to us but the norm to them. Glad you captured it.

Juddie said...

Wow! This indicates a lot of wonderful things about Icelandic culture - trust, safety, a sensible approach to life that might not prevail in other cultures. Thanks for sharing this photo!

CM said...

Great picture. I didn't even know you could do that.

Anonymous said...

It's illegal to do it in Sweden.

Gabor said...

that is the funniest thing i have seen in a long time. if you did that here, you would probably be arrested.

so you dont even need to chain the pram up with a bike lock?

Anonymous said...

My mom once forgot me in front of a shop. She came home and thought that something was missing, but it wasn't the groceries or the dog... "Oh, the baby!"

:>

Anonymous said...

I am as stunned as the rest of the people here commenting above..
(Ich bin Icelandic)
I mean, this is completely normal.. But a Dane got arrested in New York?
Hahaha that is very humorous to me indeed.

Sorry, that might be because most Icelanders are born with a dislike/laugh when something bad happens to Danes.

My father (which is 1/4th Swedish)
(But that's not really important)
lived in San Fransisco when he was 3 years old.. And his mother sort of let him play outside or something, and they later found him to have buggered off walking up a street some hundred metres away. I think this was in non-suburban San Fransisco.

Anonymous said...

this is totally sick, why has NO ONE here mentioned how the CHILD feels. It is highly neglectful of a parent to do this. Imagine the feelings of a child waking and abandoned. This is not an example of an enlightened society but once which has so repressed its own fears of being abandoned as children, that it condones this as normal.

Awful.

Anonymous said...

Hello Virgile, Trying to track your email address down. I work for a publishing company in the UK. Would you mind contacting us regarding the possibility of gaining permission to use this photo in one of our books.
Many thanks

Laura
artedjobshare@oup.com

Tove said...

You should try the feeling of holding a baby after its sleep in the pram. Well rested, red cheeks and with a very good appetite. Here in the Faroes when anybody even a stranger passes a pram with a crying baby, they go to the house and tell or start to rock the pram to ease the child.

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