During my stay in Slovenia I noticed a number of cultural differences, some smaller, some bigger. Some concern transport, some concern family life, some concern other social patterns. I found one remarkable difference in the family life.
This difference concerns the place of living of younger people, people who are about to start studying, follow some other education or start working. In Holland it´s very common that children move out of the house around the age of 18. It´s considered normal and on the other hand quite unusual if they stay living with their parents. When you turn 18, you´re on the verge of becoming an adult and you should learn what it is to deal with certain responsibilities, have your own place to live, pay your bills, sort stuff out in the city where you live and arrange stuff for your university. Some people go to their parents´ place during weekends, but a lot of them don’t – they got their new friends and their new life in the place they moved to.
This seems to be a bit different in Slovenia, from what I’ve seen and what I’ve been told. Sure, people move out when they go to study, but not quite – many people seem to go back to their parents’ place during weekends or, if they can, stay there if the city they go is not too far away. I’ve been told that people mostly stay with their parents until they have found a job with which they can afford an own house or apartment or even stay with their parents until they have found a life partner with whom they want to move in and start family or life. In Holland people usually have lived a couple of years by themselves in some student housing before they get their own place.
This is probably partly because in Holland students get a scholarship when they go to university or another educational institute, with which they can more easily afford a room. But I guess a more important reason is the way the family life is. Holland is quite an individualistic society, where people mostly and rather depend on themselves and sort things out for themselves, and not want to bother other people too much with their own lives. And people mostly don’t want to be bothered with other people lives or inside stuff. And most of all the families are way smaller. A family is usually just the mother, father and the children, which are usually one or two. This one or two children-thing does already exist for a couple of generations, and that’s why we don’t have 8 aunts and uncles and 20 cousins. It’s not that common in Holland to have big family reunions, some families might do that once a year. For the rest is it not that common to visit each other with the whole family: usually dad just goes to visit his mum and dad, or for a visit at his brother’s place. I guess families in Holland are also more separated: if, during my stay in Slovenia, I went with my girlfriend to one of the uncle’s and aunt’s places, the whole family would come, and not just her dad or brother. My girlfriend used to study in Ljubljana and went to her parents’ place every weekend and every weekend they had at least one big family visit. And to picture it: on her brother’s birthday there were at least 30 people, aunts, uncles, cousins, and it was celebrated in a community centre, while in Holland a birthday is usually just at home with some family.
Family doesn’t seem to mean that much to Dutch people as it does to Slovene people. We have our individual lives, our work or study, our friends, but family doesn’t matter that much. In Slovenia family is a more important factor…to be honest, in my opinion family should be way more important than it is in Holland. They are your blood, your kin, and are there whenever you need somebody to talk to or things in life go wrong. But that’s probably also because our family are small compared to Slovene families. Like everywhere, to us responsibility is an important value, but here that means being able to survive alone and to stand on your own feet, as young as possible (18-19 years old). It’s just a slightly different way of thinking with bigger consequences.
