Lena Andersson, a columnist for Svenska Dagbladet, argues that child poverty in Sweden is not as severe as it is in Sudan. She believes that describing children who cannot afford takeout or processed food as “going hungry” is an exaggeration of the problem. However, hunger is a reality for some Swedish children who may go to bed without food or lack proper nutrition at home. This issue has worsened with inflation and unequal salaries. Andersson’s theoretical approach to the problem includes suggesting that children can eat cheaper alternatives such as porridge or rice. However, this solution fails to account for the complex reality of class inequality and struggles for low-income families. A recent survey found that three out of ten single parents earn less than SEK 35,000 and have difficulty buying nutritious food daily. It is important to have empathy and political will to address child poverty in Sweden. While some may prioritize government subsidies for car owners when fuel prices rise, we must remember that providing basic needs for children should take priority.
No, Lena Andersson, Sweden is not Sudan
Aftonbladet’s editorial page is independent social democratic.
One of the strongest descriptions in Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s autobiography is about how he was constantly hungry as a child. The fridge was mostly empty. The rest, as you know, is history.
Today, he treats himself to a new Ferrari every birthday. But the fridge at home must still be well stocked, he says through David Lagercrantz, who wrote the book “I am Zlatan”.
Zlatan describes the body memory of often going to football training hungry. It would be his own children never need experience.
Although it has been a few decades since Zlatan Ibrahimovic was a child, we have a debate that returns. Is there really child poverty in Sweden?
Sandwiches in the classroom
Svenska Dagbladet’s leading columnist Lena Andersson doesn’t think so. The alarm that school children are eating more and more at school has been raised, she says in a well-received column this weekend.
“Hunger is a word with real meaning. Starvation is a horrible condition. But not being able to afford takeaway pizza, semi-finished products and frozen meals should not be described as children going hungry.”
It is a way of looking at Swedish child poverty with an icy gaze. No, Sweden is not Sudan. Children don’t walk around with bloated bellies from starvation. But children being forced to go to bed hungry, or not getting the food they need at home, is not, as I said, a new phenomenon that came with the inflation crisis. Although it has worsened with all the prices skyrocketing, while salaries and allowances have not kept up.
Just ask Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Or Linnea Lindquist, principal of Hammarkullsskolan in Gothenburg whom I interviewed in 2021. She told me that there are always sandwiches in the classrooms and on Mondays and Fridays her school serves pasta or meat because many children need extra food before and after the weekend.
Reality is not an Excel sheet
Lena Andersson is known for her theoretical view of the world. In novels, that squareness can become great art, as when she points out in “Egenmächtigt prodössät” that even love is a kind of transactional act. You have to chip in to get something back. When the balance is out of balance, there is no harmonious relationship.
But the reality is more complex, for example we have a class society that comes into play and which means that people have far from the same conditions.
If people in Sweden are hungry, Lena Andersson thinks they can eat porridge or rice. As the Excel thinker that she is, she has carefully calculated the price per kilo of various carbohydrates. You can really see how she sat with the calculator and thought she saw the truth.
Moralizing does not satiate
The reasoning is recognizable from Janne Josefsson’s report for Mission Review ten years ago. He also thought he had exposed Save the Children, Majblomman and other charities that raised the alarm about Swedish inequality. Children in Sweden actually have shoes! And parents smoke! Then you can’t talk about any child poverty, Josefsson said.
In part, there is a lack of ground contact about how parents with low incomes actually fare. On the one hand, it is a moralizing that drips with class contempt. Like, “didn’t you stupid little people think that rice fills you up?”.
According to a current Sifo investigation three out of ten single parents with an income of less than SEK 35,000 have had difficulty buying nutritious food for the family every day of the week. It’s an insult to all these kids that we discuss exactly how hungry they are.
Cars more important than children
All these class-blind debaters often want to see large government subsidies to car owners when fuel prices rise. But when families with children cannot afford the most basic needs, styluses are picked out instead.
How many young people today dream, as Zlatan once did, of being able to fill the fridge, there is no Excel calculation.
It only takes a little empathy to understand that, sadly, there are far too many. And a political drive to want to do something about it.
—