For some reason the Universe keeps pointing me East. Not to the Far East. No, it’s telling me to stop far short of that. It’s whispering Scandinavia.

Everywhere I turn I am seeing, hearing, reading things about Scandinavia, especially Sweden and Denmark.  So Husband and I are planning (okay, well, I am planning for us) a vacation to Sweden sometime in the next 12 months.  Because, I obey the universe when it calls.  Plus, how could you not want to visit the part of the world that invented the sauna, the smorgasbord (pickled herring aside), ABBA and the Nobel Peace prize?

It also appears, this is the land of my people. My LBB peeps.

Oprah recently did a show* — guys, stay with me here – taking a look at how women live in different countries. She (but mostly her crew) travelled from Denmark to Rio, from Tokyo to Dubai, to take a peek into the daily lives of families in each of these very different places.  Naturally, she started with Denmark as she recently was there to help lobby for the next Olympic games to be held in Chicago (in case you haven’t heard, Rio won the bid). She was struck at how happy everyone seemed to be. A show was born.

Did you know the happiest people in the world are in Denmark**? The women I saw from there on Oprah’s show were positively glowing.

Interestingly, this country has a lot of late bloomer brides. In reality, “late bloomer” probably isn’t even a concept there. But, they do get married later or not at all. In fact, marriage is slowly going out of fashion all over Scandinavia, according to my (very unscientific Google) research.

As what one Danish woman interviewed on Oprah said, getting married isn’t a goal in Denmark. Rather, finding the right mate is. (And, we all know at least one friend in the U.S. who seemed  more interested in the wedding than the marriage.)

At the same time, Scandinavians appear to have a very strong commitment to family. It’s just the paper-between-each-other-thing that has been viewed as, well, not always that necessary. What constitutes a family in Scandinavia is based on parenthood, not marriage. (Sixty percent of first-born children in Denmark have unmarried parents, according to this Weekly Standard article***.)

If you are an American woman over the age of 35, there was a high likelihood it was drilled into your head that in order to be “complete” you must get married — preferably as soon as possible. It’s a societal directive that is hard to shake.  And, this silent command has put lots of women in unhappy positions**** – like working themselves to death between the office, the nursery and the home.

So, feeling the pressure? Consider Scandinavia. (Just don’t blame me about the taxes.)

P.S. Father (as in my father) is wondering how I am going to handle the famous Scandinavian cold when we arrive in Sweden. As the family geneologist, he says we have Viking in our background so he understands the pull (but that somehow my blood was corrupted along the way with my aversion to the cold). Simple, really. I plan on spending much quality time in the saunas, of which I am promised exist every 10 feet.

P.S.S. Very interesting articles on the subjects above:

*Women Around the World by Oprah and her army

**Denmark: The Happiest Place on earth, report by ABC News

***The End of Marriage in Scandinavia by Stanley Kurtz

****The Real Reason American Women Are So Unhappy by Sharon Lerner

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