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Baby showers increasingly popular in Denmark

Lucie Rychla
March 16th, 2016


This article is more than 9 years old.

Danes are seeking new types of rituals, says consumer expert

Baby showers are an opportunity to build stronger relationships with friends, believes expert (photo: Dhinal Chheda)

Baby showers are becoming increasingly popular among Danish women, who want to celebrate the pending or recent birth of their child with friends and family, reports Kristeligt Dagblad.

Anne Glad, a consumer expert at advertising agency Envision, says baby showers are, just like Valentine’s Day or Halloween, becoming part of a new trend as Danes seek rituals to replace outdated religious traditions.

“It’s [the baby showers] an expression of a hunger and need for new rituals,” Glad told Kristeligt Dagblad.

“As we are increasingly letting go of classic religious traditions, we need new ones to lean on to, which we take from other places.”

Friendship culture
Baby showers are also an expression of a growing friendship culture among women and a way of building new ‘family’ relations with people who are not biologically-related, believes Glad.

“Today there are more expectations to lead a good life, and having a close relationship with her friends is a woman’s way of showing that, and also that life continues as it did before she had children,” Glad said.

Hanne Marie Houkjær, a vicar from Risskov Church near Aarhus, views baby showers as a positive development. She told Kristeligt Dagblad she was not worried they might take over from baptism celebrations.


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A survey carried out by Megafon for TV2 has found that 71 percent of parents have handed over children to daycare in spite of them being sick.

Moreover, 21 percent of those surveyed admitted to medicating their kids with paracetamol, such as Panodil, before sending them to school.

The FOLA parents’ organisation is shocked by the findings.

“I think it is absolutely crazy. It simply cannot be that a child goes to school sick and plays with lots of other children. Then we are faced with the fact that they will infect the whole institution,” said FOLA chair Signe Nielsen.

Pill pushers
At the Børnehuset daycare institution in Silkeborg a meeting was called where parents were implored not to bring their sick children to school.

At Børnehuset there are fears that parents prefer to pack their kids off with a pill without informing teachers.

“We occasionally have children who that they have had a pill for breakfast,” said headteacher Susanne Bødker. “You might think that it is a Panodil more than a vitamin pill, if it is a child who has just been sick, for example.”

Parents sick and tired
Parents, when confronted, often cite pressure at work as a reason for not being able to stay at home with their children.

Many declare that they simply cannot take another day off, as they are afraid of being fired.

Allan Randrup Thomsen, a professor of virology at KU, has heavily criticised the parents’ actions, describing the current situation as a “vicious circle”.

“It promotes the spread of viruses, and it adds momentum to a cycle where parents are pressured by high levels of sick-leave. If they then choose to send the children to daycare while they are still recovering, they keep the epidemic going in daycares, and this in turn puts a greater burden on the parents.”