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Coming soon to Danish social media circles: #embarrassingparents

Ben Hamilton
July 3rd, 2017


This article is more than 7 years old.

The opinion of a Year 9 student writing in a national newspaper is rapidly being embraced by the country

Looking away now, but hopefully they’ll learn to love their parents’ sense of humour (photo: Sarebear:), Flickr)

A Jyllands-Posten oped written by a Danish teenager from Værløse about embarrassing parents is rapidly resonating across the country.

The Year 9 writer Celina Schøn highlights some of the cardinal sins parents are prone to making on social media when interacting with teenagers: for example, adopting abbreviations like OMG and tagging photos in which their children look hideous.

And she also throws in some of the faux pas that occur in real life, like showing their teenage child’s baby photos and fashion bloopers to their first ever sweetheart.

Embrace and enjoy
However, her overall message is that her peers should embrace the embarrassment, as it is merely a sign that their parents love them.

Parental posts often pulls down the façade of teenage life, and this is a good thing, argues Schøn, providing the posts can be laughed at once the children reach adulthood.

Whether this will lead to a new hashtag trend, #embarrassingparents, remains to be seen.


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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.”