Reykjavík Grapevine - 04.04.2008, Page 8

08 | Reykjavík Grapevine | Issue 04 2008 | Opinion
“WAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! WAAAAAAAHHHHH!”
This is the background soundtrack that echoes
and resounds in my eardrums. I hear it some-
times, like now, as I sip my deliciously sweet Swiss
Mokka and try to concentrate on my writing while
I slouch on the sofa of my favourite kooky café.
I can also detect the wailing while I drink a per-
fectly cold mediocre draft beer at a bar. It’s also
the sound I hear while walking around Reykjavik
and when I turn around, there they are: toddlers
swinging like mischievous monkeys on a nearby
statue.
It sometimes feels as though nearly every-
one here has a child or is expecting. The parents
usually look pretty young. Maybe the fountain of
youth is a hot pot. All you have to do is walk down
Laugavegur to see devastatingly fashionable wom-
en pushing their highly sophisticated baby stroll-
ers. It makes me wonder how it is possible for
Iceland to have so few people. It’s hard to believe
considering the abundance of children around.
Reykjavik seems to be a baby mecca. I have ac-
tually met a few foreigners who ended up getting
pregnant (or getting someone else pregnant) with-
in months of moving here. Maybe all the volcanic
energy makes people especially randy. I’m not
sure.
Recently my boyfriend and I were asked by
the eight-year old child of a friend of ours if he
could see pictures of our kid. When we responded
that we did not have an adorable tyke of our own,
he looked at us quite perplexed and inquisitively
questioned us. “But, doesn’t everyone have at
least one?” he asked with the holy innocence and
honesty that only a child has. I definitely under-
stood where he developed this presumption. If I
were eight I probably would have made the same
conclusion.
What is the cause of this baby mafia? Maybe
it has something to do with the significant changes
made to the Icelandic Act on Maternity/Paternity
and Parental Leave in 2000, extending the amount
of time parents can stay at home with their child.
New fathers are now given three months leave, as
are mothers, and an additional three months are
shared between them any way they wish. Further-
more, parents who are active in the labour force
are paid 80% of their salary. It really is amazing
how much the government respects and sup-
ports family-oriented job policies. If there were
anywhere I would want to have a child, it would
definitely be here. On the other hand, the country
whose passport I hold (USA) is one of only five that
does not provide or require employers to provide
some form of paid maternity leave. Quite a shock-
ing and sad realty. Iceland is definitely a leader in
this respect and other countries should follow its
example. That is, unless they have a problem with
over population because statistics show that fer-
tility actually increased in the aftermath of these
changes.
On second thought, maybe there is no baby
mafia. Maybe it is an illusion created by a coun-
try that defends the rights of parents. Children
are seen crying, laughing, skipping, and yelling at
every corner. This is probably because they are
let wild on their wistful rampages since parental
supervision tends to be at a minimal in a country
that is so safe that babies are left outside bundled
in their strollers as parents sip wine inside a restau-
rant or enjoy coffee and grown-up conversation.
Also, because of the significant and rightly earned
paternity leave, parents can actually spend time
with their newborn and not relegate this much-
needed bonding to babysitters. This baby mania
may just be a mirage.
Or, maybe not.
Greetings from America!
The weather is lovely here! About 4°C and sunny
with just a bit of wind, and the Current Threat Lev-
el is only at yellow, according to the Department
of Homeland Security; smack dab in the middle of
A-OK and everything being totally fucked.
So I’m feeling pretty good today. Started off
right: got a cup of Starbucks coffee; glanced at the
day’s forecasts of economic stagnation; found out
there’s only an “elevated” chance that the country
will be attacked by terrorists today; and marvelled
at the sunny upstate New York weather which, ac-
cording to the Weather Channel, is exactly the
same for Reykjavík today.
It’s been a week away from my Icelandic way
of life, and so far I’ve become only superficially re-
adjusted to the American lifestyle. When I go out
to get a cup of coffee these days, I not only drive,
I drive through a drive-through window, as Star-
bucks has abandoned the façade of its European-
coffee-house-allure in exchange for home-grown
American expediency.
But on the domestic front things haven’t
changed as much and as often as the National
Threat Level in the nine months I’ve been away.
Basically, I no longer need to use power adapters
for my American devices, and when I don’t watch
TV, I’m not watching 70 channels instead of just
not watching 3.
But things in America do tend to happen on
a bigger scale than I’ve become accustomed to.
The roads, the cars, the penalties, the portions,
and the breadth of the average ass all seem to be
expanding before my eyes, but my prejudices to-
wards the American lifestyle are fading. When I
first got here, stopping at a rest area on the high-
way drive home from Kennedy airport, I felt it
was my duty as a born-again Reykjaviking to be
scornful of what I labelled as the symptoms of a
distinctly American consumerism. Everything on
the menu of the only available restaurant, Burger
King, their giant containers, along with the range
of pre-packaged and over-processed crap sold
in the convenience store, all seemed like vile
symptoms of Americans’ attitude, of their innate
excess-ridden and unrefined tastes.
But the evils of consumer culture are distinct
from the evils of everyday people. I myself had just
been on a road trip in Iceland where I more or
less ate nothing but French fries at rest stops for
three days straight. The American friend who was
visiting me at the time had never in his whole life
consumed so many French-fries in such a short
period of time. Icelanders drink Coke. They shop
in malls. They watch television and absorb adver-
tisements. In this rich country, they are definitely
bitten by the consumer-bug. But the scale is much
smaller and our borders are well taxed.
As someone who has been educated pri-
marily in the U.S., with consequential practical
and intellectual ties to it, and as a born Icelander
with a primarily Icelandic family, I am liable to de-
fend both sides in prejudiced arguments. The bug
of Icelandic national pride is an easy one to catch
because of its sheer novelty. A nation so isolated,
both by its location and by its language, can’t help
but navel-gaze. But as mother Iceland continues
to grow as a fiscal and pop-cultural presence in
the world, and as the world continues to shrink to
the size of a laptop or a portable phone, she must
learn to embrace those who have and will influ-
ence her back.
The question of influence is everything. For
journalists, it is the Holy Grail in any story or inter-
view. The drive to consume has begun to blur the
lines of influence, hanging like a parasite on our
cultures, pushing us away from what we need, to
what we want, or to what we don’t want but think
we need. As a partial American, I see that the U.S.
has that fight to fight. Its hodgepodge of cultures is
being united under the flag of consumer culture,
and they must fight it just as Icelanders ambitious-
ly fight prejudices regarding the scope of their in-
fluence with regard to the smallness of their size
and population.
As I seek to understand and acknowledge
my influences, I am happy hanging somewhere
undefined in the middle, somewhere about half-
way across the North Atlantic Ocean. What makes
the question of influence so exciting, after all, is its
distinct complexity. A lifetime’s worth of writing,
perhaps.
For now I will say I miss the smell of Reyk-
javík, the cold fresh evening air, and my friends.
I will be back with the spring.
All the best.
VALA
The Reykjavik Baby Mafia
A Postcard from America
Vala Þóroddsdóttir is a journalist for the Reykjavík
Grapevine. She is currently visiting her mother in
the US.
Marie-Alexandra Hertell hails from Puerto Rico. She
is in a childbearing age.