A Remarkable Baby Cafe in Iceland

Tinna Kristjánsdóttir, owner of Iðunnareplið, a cafe for children (and adults) in Reykjavik

Don’t think me a unrepentant Europhile. I know a bit about the stagnant economies, the old and new racism, the sometimes insufferable boredom of the continent.

However.

Every once in a while you’ll see something that is just so humane, so kind, so… progressive, that you really have to wonder what the hell is wrong with us in the U.S.

You see, DadWagon is no stranger to the de facto segregation here between those who have children and those who have no children. As fathers, we have tried to mix those groups by, say, taking our babies into bars, only to feel the full wrath of that part of society that fundamentally believes that 1) it is our fault we had children 2) our children had better stay the fuck away from bars, cafes, restaurants, food trucks and halal stands.

On the last day of vacation last week, during a 24-hour pony-and-hotspring-filled layover in Iceland, my family and I stumbled upon the complete antidote. It was a cafe so awesomely outfitted for parents of young kids that I almost want to announce some sort of X-prize million-dollar reward for the first person who opens something like it in New York.

The cafe is in downtown Reykjavik. Its name is somewhat unpronounceable for non-Icelanders: Iðunnareplið, which means Apple of Iðunn. Iðunn is, I’m told, the Norse goddess of apples. It is run by a mother of young kids named Tinna Kristjánsdóttir, who started it in January–an insane month to do anything in Iceland–as a place where parents of young children, especially mothers, could spend an afternoon drinking coffee while their children do what children like to do: play, run around, fight, poop in undersized toilets, and so on.

I took out my camera and shot a few pictures of the place. I’ll let the captions do the explaining about exactly everything Kristjánsdóttir thought of there. But first, let me say that the amenities are impressive, but it’s what they mean that is even more important. They mean that this is a safe space, a judgment-free zone, for parents as well as kids. That’s a powerful concept for American parents, who are asked to raise children without having those children act like children in public spaces. Here, in far away Iceland, apparently, you can just drink an espresso without childless adults stealing what little peace your kids left you with.

A nook in the back with a changing table and area for breastfeeding. Kristjánsdóttir says lactation consultants hold workshops at the cafe.
A playroom in the back of the cafe
Kristjánsdóttir with her child at opening time. In the back corner, a close-circuit TV for watching the kids in the back playarea
Another loungey-play area. Every table has a high-chair
From the street, a block off of City Hall

Some Stats about Bikes, Death and the Dutch

I was, as usual, mouthing off a bit yesterday with my statements of affection for (largely helmet-less) Dutch bike and cargobike culture. But DadWagon friend and colleague Carly brought up a fine point: are there any statistics?

Yes, there are.

Amidst the many blogs devoted to the Bakfiets, the traditional Dutch cargobike, there are some numbers about Dutch death and mayhem on bikes.

Turns out it’s not much mayhem. Holland has the safest streets–for all forms of transport–in Europe. The Bakfiets en Meer blog has a good post quoting the stats culled a couple years back by an expat American living in Holland named  Toby Sterling:

Here are some quick excerpts though Toby’s original text is more fun to read. Basically the message is simple: despite extremely high rates of cycling and negligible helmet use the odds of being killed while cycling in the Netherlands are extremely low.

  • Nationally the total of bicycle accident deaths hovers around 200.
  • In Amsterdam about 6 people die in bike-related accidents yearly.
  • 16 million Dutch own 18 million bikes.
  • About half the population of the NL rides a bike once a day.
  • The average distance traveled by bike per person per day was 2.5km in 2006.
  • The bicycle is used for almost a quarter of all journeys, and 35% of journeys below 7.5km.
  • Overall traffic safety in NL is the best in Europe with 45 deaths per million inhabitants per year.
  • The US has 147 deaths per million inhabitants per year.
  • You’re more likely to die of murder in the US than by cycling in the Netherlands.
  • You’re more likely to die by drowning in the Netherlands than by cycling

    • So there you have it: fewer helmets, less death than in the U.S. But Carly was right: you can’t just translate one part of Amsterdam transport (bikes) to the U.S. and expect safety to follow. The streets need to change. The mindset of drivers needs to change. That’s what will save lives, not cargobikes.

    Not that cargobikes don’t have their charms. They clearly are fetish objects, among expats living there as well (something like the gaijin who spend their days cataloging their Ramen experience. As we’ve noted before, they seem to be catching on in the states (across the Bay from where I am at UC Berkeley for the week, in SF, there’s importers My Dutch Bike, for example). But we may be a long way before us Americans can compete in feats of strength and agility like these Dutch mamas at a bakfiets competition:

    Asia de Amsterdam: Bikes, Bikes, Bikes

    I’ve written recently about the sweet, sticky smell of peace around Amsterdam (now that they are wholly post-empire). But I should say that Amsterdam has other outstanding qualities, one of which involves their ever-astonishing modes of transport.

    Let’s start with the fact that there are two types of motorbike licenses: blue and yellow. The blue license plates mean that the bike is somewhat underpowered (though still a motorbike) and can therefore ride on… bike paths/pedestrian paths. Which is to say, ride your tallbike down any Amsterdam bike path or sidewalk and you may turn a corner to find a motorbike headed straight for you. And while the yellow-plated bikes aren’t supposed hop onto the sidewalk or bikepath, they often do.

    This introduces some peril, which my friends with kids there navigate with bravura. The sidewalks, demarcated by often-bent bollards, are narrow and quite often blocked. Bikes and motorbikes ride and park on them, and the streets themselves aren’t often wide enough for a car plus a pedestrian. So walking there with a two-year-old boy, the wildest and most ignorant of all humans, is a masterclass in the repetition of hey! come back! stand still!

    Cargobiking from the train station

    Yet, there’s something great about watching massive, fair-haired Europeans bike around like Asians. That is, a segment of the inner-city biking population does its part to pile as many kids on bikes as the Indonesians, carry as much furniture by bike as the Vietnamese, and forsake bike helmets like the Thais.

    This is, by the way, great fun for kids. We got picked up at the train station by our old friend, who came wielding a local’s handiest creation, a cargobike, in which we put luggage and then kids on top. They were pretty pleased to be sherpa’d around like that. Same goes with the day we spent biking out to the garden house. And though in general I’m in favor of bike helmets, I’m also in favor of exceptions. The littlest kids had helmets, the five and six year olds didn’t, and it struck me as a bit strange how illicit this would seem in New York.

    I spent most of the rest of the time as a pedestrian, holding firmly onto my two-year-old’s hand to keep him from stumbling into the street, but I did manage to take a few other pictures of the Amsterdam bike culture, which includes beautiful little kid-perches on the back of bikes, teak cargo bikes with babyseats attached, and frontside cargo-racks that can also hold a kindergartner when needed. Echt goed.

    Winning The Veggie War

    When you get divorced people tend to ask a lot of questions, most of which are uncomfortable. I won’t bother going into all of them and limit myself to the most frequently asked one: How are you going to feel when your ex brings a new partner around your son?

    The sexist implications of this one always irked me (feminist that I am). It seemed to suggest that my ex-wife and son were possessions that I needed to guard,. Another person–presumably another guy–messing with my goods was a circumstance one ought to confront aggressively. Not reacting in this fashion further suggested a lack of male fortitude (which is a nice way of saying if you–as Dad–can’t beat up someone trying to be you–as Dad–then Dad–or you–is a pussy).

    Truth is, right after I split with JP’s mother I wasn’t sure how I would react when and if she found a new person. I thought I wouldn’t care–one of the reasons I knew I wanted a divorce was that so little about my ex could rouse emotion in me (other than anger)–but it was hard to predict. I tried to play scenarios out in my mind, imagining what it would be like to see JP in the playground with another person caring for him. Nothing really came of it.

    Ultimately, I did feel something when my ex got serious with another person (they live together now): relief. I was never able to communicate successfully with JP’s mother while we were married; interacting with her when we no longer were proved no easier. But her partner, at least on a superficial level, was someone I could talk to. Now if I have to arrange things relating to JP, I try as much as possible to involve his mother’s partner. It makes my life simpler, reduces the number of fights, and allows me to deal with someone who seems more rational than my ex (although the choice of taking my ex as a partner does tend to make me wonder).

    I figured this all out only recently, when JP, after years of bitter, agile, asymmetric, VC-like resistance, surrendered and began eating his vegetables. Is he thrilled by asparagus? Amused by arugula? Enthralled with cauliflower? No. But he eats them, with only a pro forma effort at arguing, negotiating, and weeping.

    When this began I asked my ex what she had done. I certainly hadn’t come up with any solutions. She told me it wasn’t her, but her partner who had gotten fed up with JP not eating his vegetables, and with methods the CIA might recognize and approve of, had broken his will and set him in a more positive direction.

    This is a good thing, and no threat to me at all. I’ll just have to teach him how to throw.