Norway - the best place to be for Dad, Mom and Kids - by Saleha Mohsin

I’m celebrating the freedom my husband has as a man living in Norway, which give him the right to:

• leave the office by 5:30 p.m. to spend time with his family (barring the occasional deadline)
• adjust his office hours around day-care pickup/dropoff
• have time to organize family dinners and help with housework

The Norwegian government has socially engineered a society where men and women are expected to have equal domestic and economic responsibilities. Walk around the streets of Oslo on a weekday morning and you’ll see proof: there are dads everywhere. Equipped with babybags, strollers or babycarriers, you’ll find them in coffee shops or at playgroups singing nursery rhymes.

Redistributing familial duties is simple: excellent work-to-life balance and superb parental benefits, which include a quota for fathers.

The Norwegian government spends 16 billion kroner ($2.8 billion) a year on parental benefits for a sparse population of 5 million.

Read more: Norway and paternity leave: Father's day of a different kind - CSMonitor.com