To all Americans...

…old Americans, young Americans, dual citizens, and you know what, if you have lived here long enough that you know what to wear when the news tells you it is going to be 65 today, this one is for you too. Let me just start off by saying that I like you. I really, really like you. You’re friendly, funny, hard-working, courageous, chivalrous, polite, enthusiastic, and did I say friendly yet? But there is one thing I really need to sit down and talk to you about. One thing that Europeans really know how to do far better than you. And I’m not talking about health care, or social security, or how to build pedestrian-friendly stripmalls. I’m talking about something far more important than that: paid leave, or as our European counterparts like to call it: vacation time.

You see, when it comes to paid leave, Americans have got it all backwards. It first goes wrong when your darling offspring start going to school. Obviously, I can’t speak for every one of the fifty states, but here in Georgia, educators seem to worry a great deal about overburdening our poor children’s minds. They call it “year-round-school”, although I would opt to change that label to “We’ve decided education is severely overrated” program. Our children do not only have a nine-ten week summer break, but they also have a week in September, a week in November, two weeks at Christmas, a week in February, and one week in April. Not to mention all the federal holidays, teacher workdays, parent-teacher conference days, CRCT prep days, and the few days the teachers need to recuperate from dealing with their students. Besides the fact that all these breaks are an incredible nuisance for working parents who are constantly scrambling for ideas on what to do with their little darlings for another week without school, and the fact that our kids now only have some seriously packed nine-week quarters, if you compare this to the European school system, European children look positively overworked. Dutch family members in our kids’ ages have a meager six week break, two weeks at Christmas, and three weeks spread out throughout the school year.

So all in all, being a kid in Georgia is really not all bad. The sun always shines in the summer, everyone’s neighbor has a pool, and there is an endless supply of bugs to bring into the house and nurture in a terrarium in your room. However, do they appreciate it? Of course not. The summer drags on for so long, the kids get bored, and the little weeks off in between merely throw them off schedule, as our oldest likes to put it. The sad part is that once they are old enough to appreciate it, the whole concept of leave is snatched away from them.

Because, and I don’t know how you smart, independent, and strong-headed Americans let this happen to you, especially since you live in a country that is probably in the top five of vacation destinations in the world, American adults have probably the lowest amount of paid leave in the western world: an average of ten days per year. Ten days!? For those spoiled European readers, that translates to two weeks per year. Two weeks to go see the family, take mini-breaks to the beach or the city, and plan your annual family vacation. And why? Why does a nation that is smart enough to have some of the best schools in the world, several Nobel Prize winners among its population, and to have conceived the Internet, Facebook, and several other things I could not live without, give itself such measly leave plans? Why don’t people rise up and demand more time off? You rose up over taxes on tea and stamps, yet you happily let yourself be deprived of the wonders of two, or maybe even three, vacations per year? Of weekends away? Of taking a day off when you’re just not feeling it? Someone please explain this to me, because I am lost.

And did you know that in The Netherlands employers are bound by law to give their employees a minimum of 21 days of paid leave? And that’s just a minimum. When I worked at a university I had approximately 35 days of paid leave. I had so much leave, I was never quite sure how much I actually had left. And you know what, it didn’t even matter, because there was more than enough. Now I don’t even get leave. Sure, I don’t have to work over summer, or Christmas, but I also don’t get paid.

So, America, I beseech you. Turn this whole thing right side up; start demanding that your kids spend at least 40 weeks per year in school, like every other child in the Western world, and then start requesting more leave for yourself. Your kids have all the energy in the world, and let’s be honest, you don’t. So do the right thing.