Why Scandinavians Often Lack Healthy Confidence

And what they can adapt from Americans

I often write about all the good things about Scandinavia. There are a lot of them, especially when it comes to welfare, education, and the simpleness of things. Everything feels less complicated, and it is.

But there is one thing I can’t stand about my homeland Norway, and here’s where us Scandinavians can learn and adapt something from the people in the United States. In the Nordic countries, especially within Scandinavia, there’s this unspoken law that’s been deeply ingrained in people and has been passed down generation after generation.

Don’t think you’re special

It’s known as janteloven (law of Jante). Back in 1933, the Danish author Aksel Sandemose published a novel where the famous words were printed. Here, translated to English:

• You’re not to think you are anything special
• You’re not to think you are as good as we are
• You’re not to think you are smarter than we are
• You’re not to convince yourself that you are better than we are
• You’re not to think you know more than we do
• You’re not to think you are more important than we are
• You’re not to think you are good at anything
• You’re not to laugh at us
• You’re not to think anyone cares about you
• You’re not to think you can teach us anything

Talk about stripping you of healthy confidence! In the book, the author was inspired by his own childhood and Jante is the name of the fictional small town where the main character grew up. Janteloven is an expression of the small town’s tyrannical pressure on the individual. Sandemose was looking to put the spotlight on something he meant already had a stronghold in society, and he argued that this unspoken law was not limited to the town he grew up in.

The sad thing about his words is that a lot of people growing up in Scandinavia, myself included, can relate to them. And I agree with Sandemose. He put into words something that was already there. You grow up with the sense that you’re not that special. You do your thing, you’ll be fine, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary. You put society ahead of the individual, you don’t ever boast about your own accomplishments, and you’re not jealous of others. You are who you are, nothing more, nothing less.

Isn’t that a good thing, being who you are?

Yes, you can pull some positives out of this social norm. I for sure could use a break from all the bragging I hear in the country I now call home. Ha! And it really is great that you know society will take care of you, you’ll be fine if you’re sick and you don’t have a job or a healthcare plan.

But still, one should be able to have all that and still grow up feeling confident in yourself. A healthy, non-arrogant confidence, just because you’re you. Not because you’re in a good society and your country’s got your back.

Blurred vision

I remember a few months before I was about to graduate high school, one of my old teachers asked me what my plans for the future were.

I am planning on moving to New York City to study photojournalism, I said.

He started laughing a little, and told me:

Well, good luck with that!

I don’t think he believed it would be possible, or maybe that I wouldn’t get into the school. In Norway, at the time, there was one single public school for photojournalism, and it was ridiculously hard to get into. Maybe he thought why the heck would I leave Norway to study overseas. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t make it, or would have the money for it. I really have no clue what he was thinking, but I have a feeling his vision was heavily blurred by the good old janteloven.

Who was I, to leave the small town and society I grew up in?

Who did I think I was?

Well, I left, I came back, and I left again.

Confidence encouarged

When my husband and I decided to move back to the U.S. with our young kids, many of our friends thought we were crazy. I admit I thought so at times myself. Why would we leave one of the happiest and most kid-friendly countries in the world?

Although healthy confidence wasn’t really on my mind when we moved, the difference I see confidence-wise in my kids versus what I saw growing up, is so, so significant. My kids get encouraged at school. They thrive, and they’re very confident, in a good way. The teachers cheer them on. If they’re advanced when it comes to learning, they get individual help to strengthen and grow what they already have.

They get encouraged by friends. By strangers. By anyone and anything. They have that American mindset that everything is possible, and that they can do it.

They’re still young and don’t know about all the things that can make and will make things hard in the U.S. But they’re happy and they believe in themselves. Growing up in Scandinavia, it took me years and years to become confident. I don’t even think I fully got it until I met my American husband.

There’s the arrogant confidence. We can ditch that. But there’s that healthy confidence that’s important for personal growth and self-esteem, and from what I’ve seen, America’s got it.