Essere una madre in Occidente sarebbe un sogno, ho pensato. Ma rispetto all’Uganda, è stato un incubo | Patience Akumu
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/feb/05/mother-west-uganda-parenting-uganda-society-switzerland
di Amareldys
5 commenti
I thought this was interesting, but feel her problem was less that Swiss people don’t help each other out, and more that she wasn’t a Swiss person. She was an outsider, not “one of the village”, and didn’t have family or friends around. Swiss people are notoriously introverted, so to befriend them you have to be the one who makes the effort.
But in my experience extended families totally help each other out, and friends swap childcare. She just didn’t have those people around.
I do think that in Switzerland, it doesn’t “take a village” to raise a child. And at least not from my anecdotal memory as a child myself, i rarely relied on other people than my own parents, at most gradparebts.
I do think people here are more looking out for their own kids and on average have less kids (2021 was 4.9 kids per family in Uganda vs. 1.39 kids oer family in CH.) So it’s easier to take care bcz it’s less work i suppose.
……. I mean…
Swiss support system for parents doesn’t exist. Unfortunately Switzerland is light years behind reality.
Hmmm… I send about CHF 500 per month to an orphanage in Uganda. From what they tell me they frequently go hungry, etc. etc. Maybe for stable tribal families in Uganda life is better there, but for large swathes of the population the situation is really hard.