Feminism at work

Today I really started to like this country. And it was not because of November kind of weather with rain and wind and 8 degrees Celsius. It was because one sentence I've heard today morning. It happened in Kela office, that is in a social affairs department. I was filling out a form applying for a child care allowance (those almost 500 euro a month this beautiful country pays stay-at-home-mothers) with an assistance of a nice clerk. There were some questions about if I am employed - no, if I am unemployed - no, hm, I said - I'm just not working but I'm not register as an unemployed. And then I've heard: yes, you are not unemployed, you are taking care of your child at home and this is the money Kela pays for this care. Wow! Have you ever heard something like that? In Poland there were only some empty talks among politicians about how much is woman's work at home worth. In the States probably never this sort of question appeared even in an imagination of any politician. And here? Voila! Being at home with a little child is a job to do and for this not easy job you get some money. Easy. No wonder there is so many kids everywhere and families, which consist mostly of at least two kids and very often of three. At least this is what I've noticed living here for a month. But still what I've heard, many new mothers are getting back to work after the nine or eleven months of maternity allowance. It is a country for women - president is a woman, bishop of Helsinki is a woman and the fertility rate is 1.86 children born per woman, comparing to Poland 1.4 (and for the metropolitan areas only 1.3).