This essay is from I’ll Be Right Back, my new parenting email newsletter that comes out on Fridays. Subscribe here.

I submitted this to Vox First Person and they weren’t interested so here you go.

Finland has the best educational system in the world. Kids there don’t learn to read until they’re seven; instead, they spend all their time playing outside, no matter the weather, in attractive specialty rain gear.

Finnish babies also get freaking amazing baby boxes, packed with gender-neutral bedding and clothing, free from the government. None of the clothes have cutesy sayings or messages on them because the Finnish government considers writing on children’s clothing to be a form of advertising and has banned it since the 1960s.

In Sweden, new parents get 480 days of parental leave, 90 of which must be taken by the father. Families are also visited weekly by government-paid consultants who help them ensure that women are not taking on more of the “worry work” (scheduling doctor’s appointments and playdates, planning meals) than men are. While they are there, the consultants will quickly clean up your kitchen and rearrange your kid’s drawers.

Scandinavian kids go out and play as much as kids did in the fifties, and even though parents have a four-hour workday, you don’t actually have to watch your kid when they’re outside if you don’t want to, because professional young men and women are just unobtrusively overseeing things from trees. They’ve been highly trained to recognize the difference between necessary and unnecessary interventions when it comes to children in play. These coveted trädvakt positions pay the equivalent of USD $150,000 a year.

For all of these benefits, Scandinavian citizens pay on average three percent more in taxes than Americans do.

As you can see, I have learned a lot about Scandinavia from extensive wistful reading. I have no plans to visit the region anytime soon, so instead, I took my family to the IKEA in Stoughton, Mass. on Sunday. I figured it would be a great way to learn more about the Nordic dream while simultaneously purchasing a toddler bed for my daughter. It would be great if she could sleep in a tasteful box but she is getting too tall.

Here are my takeaways about what it is like to live in the most family-friendly place on earth.

1) Småland provides free childcare — but there’s a wait

Småland is a forest-themed supervised play area. You can leave your kid there for 60 minutes free, or 30 additional minutes if you are an IKEA Family member, which is also free. However, there is an extremely long line and kids have to be four and toilet-trained. Visitors also note that levels of quality vary. “The afternoon was pretty much ruined for me.” “THEY WERE HOLDING MY CHILD AGAINST MY WILL!” “Let a caregiver come but run the ID for criminal check.” “Moms or dads who time it right visit on days that Ikea is offering one of its free breakfast promotions and score bacon and eggs for the family, too.”

My daughter is too young for Småland, so I grabbed the consolation prize that IKEA offers every parent of a child under four (a voucher for a complementary month of childcare at a location of your choice) and we took her with us to look at mattresses.

2) Products are high-quality, but choice is limited

Toddlers the world over love selecting fabric patterns. When it was time to let Alice pick out a duvet cover for her new bed, the American in me was disappointed to see that there were only 14 tasteful choices priced under $20. An American store would likely have presented more opportunities for her to express her individuality.

On the other hand, she picked a duvet cover with trucks, airplanes, and tractors on it. That presented Kevin and me an excellent opportunity to scream “GREAT CHOICE, HONEY!” and stuff it into the cart before she could change her mind and choose something pinker that would have prevented us from being able to pat ourselves on the back for doing such an amazing job raising a child who resists gender stereotypes. The Scandinavian influence at work!

3) Scandinavians are obsessed with licorice

Though our workday at IKEA only lasted about 90 minutes, we all felt exhausted by the end of it. As we were neared the front of the checkout line, I discovered that we had forgotten the $14.99 waterproof mattress pad on our list. One of us would have to walk several miles back to get it while the other one paid for the rest of our stuff and then stayed with Alice in the checkout/food area. After a quick negotiation over which job was worse (result: inconclusive), I stayed with Alice while Kevin went to get the Nattlig.

The Stoughton IKEA’s checkout feeds you directly into a grocery area that includes pick-and-choose Scandinavian candy bins. I entered a trance-like state of paralysis and indecision staring into the bins, while Alice took the opposite and completely reasonable tack of reaching into a bin and pulling out a single jellybean, at which point the lady behind the counter yelled at her and made her cry. Instead of doing what I wanted to do, which was scream “ALL OF THIS CANDY SHOULD BE FREE, WHAT DO YOU EVEN EXPECT FROM A TWO-YEAR OLD,” I put that stolen jellybean into a bag and then bought it along with about three-quarters of a pound of additional candy. The stress of selecting the additional candy caused me to accidentally include a great deal of disgusting and deceivingly brightly colored licorice.

Alice and I then slumped on the concrete floor with our shopping cart and the candy bag. She pulled out the jellybean and asked, “Is this the jellybean?” as in, “Is this THE jellybean that caused all these problems?” I said yes and she ate it with relish. She then ignored the bag and focused her attention on some other candy that somebody had spilled on the floor. First, she found a Swedish Fish covered with dust. I told her not to eat it. After that, she found a red, round candy in a corner.

“Mom, this one is clean!” she said. I admit I didn’t try very hard to prevent anything in the second that elapsed between her seeing the round and putting it into her mouth.

“It was an M&M,” she told me.

It wasn’t, of course. In Scandinavia, there are no logos on anything. Also, if you try a piece of licorice and you don’t like it, you can either get a refund or have the equivalent amount donated to a government program that provides candy to prisoners.

4) I’d definitely go back, but I probably wouldn’t take my kid

Overall, I really enjoyed my trip to Scandinavia via IKEA. I just kept thinking how much easier it would be if I hadn’t brought a toddler with me. If I go back, I’d probably go by myself and make it a whole day thing.

This essay is from I’ll Be Right Back, my new parenting email newsletter that comes out on Fridays. Subscribe here.