{"id":3258,"date":"2015-04-30T19:59:19","date_gmt":"2015-04-30T19:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/?p=3258"},"modified":"2015-04-30T19:59:19","modified_gmt":"2015-04-30T19:59:19","slug":"its-never-too-late-for-a-happy-childhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/its-never-too-late-for-a-happy-childhood\/","title":{"rendered":"Its Never Too Late for a Happy Childhood"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3261\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft post-item__attachment\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2015\/04\/15H.jpg\" aria-label=\"15H 300x225\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3261\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3261\"  alt=\"Childhood (photo taken from www.gratisography.com)\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2015\/04\/15H-300x225.jpg\"><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3261\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Childhood (photo taken from www.gratisography.com)<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Today is Children&#8217;s Day in Mexico and I&#8217;ve found myself very thoughtful about my childhood. I haven&#8217;t been able to experience much of childhood in the Netherlands other than what Riccardo tells me and what I observe. Even so, with what I have been able to observe, I have come up with this list of great reasons to be a child in the Netherlands:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify\"><em>Fietsen is vrijheid!\u00a0<\/em>I love seeing children and teenagers race to school on their bikes every morning. Because the Netherlands is such a bike-friendly country, children are able to safely travel by bike to school, friends&#8217; houses, soccer practice, etc without depending on their parents&#8217; work schedules.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify\"><em>Middag eten thuis!<\/em>\u00a0I don&#8217;t know if this happens everywhere or just here in Beek where I live, but Riccardo has talked about how he would come home to have lunch, and then go back to school. I think that is awesome! Eating at home increases the chances of getting healthier food, plus its always nice to be home for a bit.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify\"><em>Halve dag op Woensdag!<\/em> Children in the Netherlands are home early on Wednesdays. I am not sure why this is so (perhaps teacher planning hours or something like that?), but its nice to have the middle of the week be short.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify\"><em>Mama of Pappadag<\/em>! Netherlands is THE country of part-time work. I recently read a book about the liberties Dutch parents have to either work part-time or take a mommy or daddy day from work. While I am a big fan of smart phones and communication via all means, there is nothing like being at home with your children and hearing about their day!<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify\"><em>Sporten!<\/em> Okay, I admit this isn&#8217;t something \u00a0I would have been thrilled about as a child (I was more of the sit-down-to-read child), but I am amazed at the availability of sporting facilities for soccer, baseball and tennis. While schools do not have athletic teams (or so I am told), the community makes sure to have enough spaces for everyone to stay healthy!<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify\"><em>Hagelslag!<\/em> I have come to learn and enjoy the most basic of all Dutch foods: chocolate sprinkles. While I am not a big fan of chocolate, there is something magical about having breakfast with sprinkles!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I am sure there are also negative aspects of being a child in the Netherlands (or even of having a child in the Netherlands), but in the spirit of focusing on the happiness I only chose to write about these.<\/p>\n<p>Did I miss something on my list? What do you think are the best aspects of growing up in the Netherlands? In your home country?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"350\" height=\"263\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2015\/04\/15H-350x263.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image tmp-hide-img\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2015\/04\/15H-350x263.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2015\/04\/15H-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2015\/04\/15H-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p>Today is Children&#8217;s Day in Mexico and I&#8217;ve found myself very thoughtful about my childhood. I haven&#8217;t been able to experience much of childhood in the Netherlands other than what Riccardo tells me and what I observe. Even so, with what I have been able to observe, I have come up with this list of&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/its-never-too-late-for-a-happy-childhood\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":3261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[60713],"tags":[4659,340458,3608,10149],"class_list":["post-3258","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture-2","tag-childhood","tag-chocolate-sprinkles","tag-dutch","tag-netherlands"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3258"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3263,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3258\/revisions\/3263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}