Scandinavia and the World
Scandinavia and the World

Comments #9553521:


Mean Names 9 11, 6:14pm

Iceland sometimes calls Denmark "Beanland." That's about the only "name calling" from Iceland (though it's not really negative, it's just because Denmark is so green vs. Iceland's rustic landscape). Oh, well, recently we've come to call Norwegians kidnappers, because they're trying to take away an Icelandic child that lived with its mother for two years in Norway. The grandmother fled with the child to Iceland, hoping for protection here because the mother was seen as being an unfit parent (though she has gone through therapy), but the Norwegian government still wants the child to be sent over and placed in foster care with some Norwegian strangers. Apparently this is a big thing in Norway and they're more prone to taking away children of foreign descent. The child is an Icelandic citizen, and in my opinion it shouldn't be sentenced to Norwegian foster care for 14 years, only seeing its mother two times a year under watch. The grandmother has taken care of the child all its life and she's seems to be a very fit parent. In Iceland, we'd allow her to take care of the child instead of putting the child through the foster system, but things seem to work differently in Norway. So, Norway is a kidnapper ^.^ An Australian TV show explains this in a show called Dateline (the episode is called Norway's Stolen Children).