In my last two blog posts (here and here), I talked about my classes this semester. Not much has changed since I wrote them. Math and physics aTrhe issti iill he most stressful classes I have, and I continue to soldier on, sometimes hopeful, other times frustrated. However, my commitment to the program remains unwavering because my motivation remains unchanged.
I’m here for my family, and from a family perspective, we’re doing well.
DayCare
I’ll start with the most amazing thing that has happened to us thus far. We received a letter in the mail that stated that our daycare costs are based upon family size and income. For our family size and income (or lack thereof), Alaya’s daycare will cost 0 euros. Yes, you read that right. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Nothing.
In addition to that, based on our family size, we would need to have a combined salary that exceeds 3610 euros to even qualify to pay anything at all. This means that even if Bochuan gets a job, we’d likely still be paying nothing. Yes, you read that right. Bochuan could get a job, and we probably still wouldn’t have to pay for daycare.
Now, one of the reasons that moving to a Nordic country like Finland was attractive, was the affordable daycare. There are private daycares in Finland which probably cost prices close to the US or other countries, but the public ones are all so sufficiently funded that no parent has to pay more than 288 euros per month (approx. 330 US dollars) out of pocket for daycare costs. So, Bochuan and I budgeted for 288 euros per month.
I knew that how much we would ultimately pay for daycare would be based on our income and family size because I read this on the website. However, I thought for sure that we’d have to pay something because we’re not Finnish citizens. Also, to get a residence permit to move here, we needed to prove we had enough money to cover our living costs for the next two years (which Finnish Immigration, or Migri, considers to be 2200 euros per month). However, even if they took that 2200 euros into consideration when determining how much we’d pay for daycare, we’d still pay nothing. Yup, zero. Nada. Zilch.
Based on what I read about average salaries here, I have to wonder how many families make enough money to pay full price for daycare. It’s my guess that we’re not the only family with free daycare, and most families likely pay a reduced price (of the already reduced price… because 288 euros a month is not what it actually costs per child to run a daycare center).
But it’s more than that. While we were living in China, we also had free childcare thanks to Bochuan’s parents. However, it wasn’t an ideal childcare situation. Even in a culture where grandparents are “expected” to take care of their grandchildren, I don’t think grandparents should have to do so full-time. People have different opinions on this, and I’m not making an argument for how things should be. I’m just going to describe my experience.
In my case, my in-laws had no experience taking care of children Alaya’s age (17-months when we got back to China) because Bochuan was raised by his grandmother in Shanghai from the age of 11 months to 4 years old. The other problem was that my in-laws were in their mid-sixties. My mother-in-law had a bad back from being hit by a car a few years earlier, and my father-in-law had a heart attack and needed a quadruple bypass surgery only a few years earlier. The third reason was that it was nice taking care of your grandchild full-time for a couple of weeks, maybe even a couple of months, but after that it just gets tiring, especially in your 60s. I have a hard time keeping up with Alaya, and I'm 31.
Beyond these reasons, the following just complicates the situation:
the generational differences in how to take care of the child,
the power dynamic between yourself as the parent of the toddler, and yourself as the child of the caregiver,
living with your in-laws (the caregivers),
the cultural and linguistic difference that is the case of my family.
It's recipe for exhaustion and discomfort.
The discomfort comes from feeling that you should be grateful to have free, full-time care for your child, but having those feelings constantly overshadowed by your frustration with the quality of the care. When you are not satisfied with the quality of care your child receives, you can easily decide to have someone else care for them, if your caregiver isn’t your parents or parents-in-law.
Of course, Bochuan’s parents absolutely love Alaya. They would never do anything to cause her any possible harm. However, this can also be a problem. This may mean that they stop her from trying to do anything that they consider “too dangerous,” or they might immediately give her the thing she’s crying for (e.g. their cellphone) so she will stop crying.
However, the biggest problem was definitely the power dynamic and how that affected trust. For instance, we had a set of healthy snacks for Alaya that Bochuan’s parents could give her between meals, but they would buy their own stuff and give her food items we specifically (and repeatedly) asked them not to. I imadinge that in the past, the person with the most authority in our household would have been Bochuan’s dad. So, asking him not to do something he thought was totally fine was a waste of time. He’d just do what he thought was best while we weren’t looking. This is just a small example of all the little things that would add up to dissatisfaction with the childcare situation.
I would absolutely have paid for a different childcare situation, but it's what Bochuan wanted. I also knew at the time that if all went according to plan, we'd be leaving China. I felt bad about leaving Bochuan's parents. I felt bad that they wouldn't get to see their granddaughter whenever they wanted to. So, I operated under guilt, and I endured those eight months.
Now, Alaya’s daycare situation is what I would consider ideal. Alaya goes and interacts with other children in her age group, and she also learns from them too. For instance, she used the potty at the daycare for the first time recently. She also puts away her dishes after eating a meal. Her teachers said she learned this from repeatedly watching the other children do it. I'm sure she's picked up a few "bad habits" from them too, but that's to be expected. The daycare has a schedule of activities, like singing, painting, playing dress up, or taking short trips around the city. Also, because they believe in Finland that “there’s no such thing as bad weather,” Alaya has unstructured play outside every day for at least two hours. The daycare provides breakfast, lunch, and snack, which is not charged separately. Did I mention that we don’t have to live with her daycare teachers? They’re perfectly wonderful people, but I’m sure we’d like each other less if we had to live together.
So, now I have a wonderful childcare situation. In fact, my gratitude is overflowing and unencumbered by frustration. When I think of Alaya's childcare situation, I feel a sense of relief and warmth and joy. Alaya is thriving, and I’m tearing up as I write this, because never in a million years did I imagine there was a place I could get wonderful daycare for Alaya that was free of charge to me while I'm pursing further studies.
This country feels unreal.
Permanent Residency
Because I’ve moved here for a study program that lasts at least two years, the Finnish government treats me and my family like we’ve moved to Finland permanently. We're considered permanent residents of Finland effective the day we arrived. Bochuan and I now have Finnish ID cards.
I lived in China for 8 years. I worked there the entire time. I paid no small amount of taxes, and still, every year I needed to go through the process of renewing my residence permit. I was never given a Chinese ID card, which provides a lot of benefits that carrying around my passport did not. I won’t even go into the immigration process my family and I went through in the United States when moving from Jamaica. It took so many years, and a great deal of money to get a green card.
And here, I walk off the plane, and I’m considered a permanent resident?
As permanent residents, we are entitled to many of the same benefits as Finnish citizens. Not all, but many more than I ever imagined possible. For instance, it’s possible (not yet determined) that Bochuan could get unemployment benefits while he’s looking for a job here despite never having worked in Finland before. We might also be able to get the child benefit for Alaya. This is a benefit the government pays out every month for the first 18 years of child’s life. So, in addition to the free daycare, they might also just give us 95 euros a month. I call it the clothing stipend, because that’s what we’d spend it on if they decided we qualified for it. Clothes are so expensive here. We’ve spent so much money on clothes already ($800 for Alaya, and another $700 for us), and Alaya just went through a growth spurt, so more shopping ahead.
Even if they decide not to give us the unemployment or child benefit, we do qualify for the most important benefit: healthcare. Bochuan and I just got sick (thanks to Alaya). Getting sick all the time because your child is in daycare is a “benefit” we wish we could avoid, but such is life. The good news is that we can go to the doctor without having to pay anything at all. When Bochuan was feeling particularly awful one evening, he called to ask what to do. They scheduled an appointment for him at the emergency room. He went in, saw a doctor, took a few tests, and then walked out.
How much does it cost to see a doctor in the emergency room in the US? In China, depending on the hospital, it can be reasonably priced or expensive. But free?
Unreal.
Just Married
There's more I could say, but I'll end with this, I find it hilarious that Bochuan and I just opened our first joint bank account, despite being married for almost 7 years. It wasn’t possible when we tried a few years ago in China, and it wasn’t possible last year when we tried in the United States because Bochuan didn’t have a US driver’s license or state ID. So, it is in Finland, a country where neither of us are citizens, that we managed to successfully and without any fuss, open a join-bank account for the first time.
Then after successfully opening our first joint bank account, the banker asked if we were interested in opening a home saving’s account. It was an account meant to promote homeownership before the age of 40. If we could save up 10% of the cost of a home, we’d be guaranteed a loan for the remaining 90%. Of course, there are some limits on how much or little we could put in the account per quarter and so on, but it overall seemed like a great option for us. Afterall, we were planning to settle in Finland, and I had been wondering how easy it would be for a foreigner to buy a home here.
It seems that it’s not very hard at all. And, now we’re saving towards a house.
It feels to me like we just got married, and we're still in the honeymoo phase of our life in Lappeenranta.
Final Thought
When Bochuan read the letter stating that we would get free daycare, he said, “My new goal is to make enough money so that we have to pay something for daycare.” When a social system is this good, you want to pay into it. I don't know how Finland manages to pull this off, but I want to be a part of keeping it going and even improving it.
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