Swedish Daycare Bans Astrid Lindgren

Kids can't read Pippi Longstocking? Nope. Emil? Nope. Welcome to Sweden™.

Get It Try It

STOCKHOLM (Rixstep) — All children should be addressed by the gender-neutral made-up word 'hen'. Boys are coerced to wear dresses. And Astrid Lindgren's books have been thrown out. This is the reality at daycares in Sweden.

One day a girl whispers in her teacher's ear: 'Am I a boy or a girl?'

When Anna started working at a Swedish daycare about two years ago, she was in for a shock. A girl came up to her and showed off her blouse with a butterfly. Anna said 'oh how nice!'

But she shouldn't have said that. One of the other teachers came up to her right away and told her that teachers should not tell the children that something they are wearing is 'nice' or that they are 'cute'.

Anna then tried to think about how she expressed herself, but soon noticed that it was not the only thing she had to think about. When she used 'he' or 'she' with the children, she got scolded again.

'You are not allowed to determine the gender of a child!' she was told.

This was also noticed when she was going to read books for the children. Staff had taken Tipp-Ex and covered all the 'he' and 'she' words and replaced them with 'HEN'.

But this was still not enough.

'One day when we were tidying up the toys, my colleagues threw away all the Emil and Pippi books. I thought it was unnecessary to throw books away, and I asked why.'

The answer she received? There are no gender-neutral people in books! The bookshelves at preschool have now been filled with children's books with subjects such as transsexuality and homosexuality.

The section Anna worked in had children three to four years old, but even when she worked in the section for even younger children, she noticed the same thing.

One- and two-year-olds sat in a ring as the teachers told them that a girl could fall in love with a girl and boy with a boy. Then they asked the children 'who are you in love with?' A little boy looked completely confused and said 'MY LEGO!'

Speaking of Lego: it's one of the few toys permitted at the daycare. Dolls have been banned, and recently cars and the trains went the same way.

Something that remains however is clothes to dress up in. One day a boy put on a fireman's suit.

'But you know you can wear your dress if you want?' the boy was asked by a teacher.

'But I don't want to wear a dress, I want to wear this!' the boy replied.

'Yes but you understand you can still wear a dress?' the teacher answered back.

Anna says it's not only staff pushing gender on the children: some parents do so as well.

One day she told a boy: 'your mum is here!' The mother came up and said adamantly: 'I am not a mother - I am a PARENT!'

Teachers may not say 'mama' or 'papa'. They must always say 'parent'. And that's OK now because children may today have both parents of the same gender.

The same woman told Anna that her children are forbidden from calling her 'mama'. They must call her 'mapa'.

But not all parents like this. And many parents have no clue how deeply rooted Sweden's gender mania's become.

Words like 'snowman' and 'Father Xmas': are banned and have been replaced with new gender-neutral expressions. A popular Disney movie for children has been banned for the same reasons.

'One day a three-year-old girl came up to me and said 'today I'm a boy!' A year later, before summer break, she approached me again and asked me anxiously 'am I a boy or girl?''

Anna lost it at that point and told her 'YOU ARE A GIRL'.

'I couldn't follow the rules any longer. I just couldn't. They go against everything I know.'

Footnote: a new governmental edict for Sweden's daycares has been prepared by GUSTAV FRIDOLIN. Parents are already in an uproar.