The Myth of Independent American Families独立美国家庭的迷思

In Nordic countries， people rely on the state. In the U.S.， they rely on their communities.

在北欧，人们依靠国家。在美国，人们依靠自己的社区。

In 1970， a 17-year-old named Lars Tragardh left Sweden for America， trading in the collectivism of his home country for rugged individualism. Or so he thought.

1970年，一位名叫拉尔斯·特雷高的17岁少年离开瑞典前往美国，舍弃祖国的集体主义而选择了坚定的个人主义。至少他是这样想的。

His disillusionment began while he was applying for college financial aid. He hoped to attend Pomona College in Southern California， and even back then， tuition seemed steep compared with the cost of education in Sweden， where university was free. When he learned that the school had two sets of aid forms—one regarding his own income， and one for his parents’—he was surprised. “Well， what does that have to do with me？” Tragardh recalls asking. “I’m an adult … I have no economic relations to my family anymore.” An administrator explained that in America， parents are expected to contribute to their children’s college costs.

申请大学助学金时他的幻想开始破灭。他希望入读南加州的波莫纳学院，而即便在那个年代，美国大学的学费相较于瑞典也似乎高不可攀——瑞典的大学教育是免费的。当他得知学校有两套助学金申请表（这两套表分别涉及他自己的和他父母的收入）时，他很惊讶。特雷高记得自己当时问道：“呃，那和我有什么关系？我是个成年人……我和家人已经没有经济关系了。”一位管理人员解释说，在美国，父母应该出钱供孩子上大学。

Tragardh thought that sounded generous， but also concerning. Wouldn’t that sort of financial dependence give parents unreasonable influence over their adult children？ What if the child wanted to study， say， history， but the parents refused to pay unless their child pursued medicine？ “They looked at me like I was from Mars，” Tragardh， now a historian living in Stockholm， told me.

特雷高觉得这听起来很慷慨，但也很令人担忧。这种经济依赖难道不会导致父母对成年子女施加不合理的影响吗？比如说，如果孩子想学历史，但父母要孩子学医他们才肯出钱，该怎么办？“他们看我的眼神，就像我来自火星一样。”特雷高对我说道。他现在是一位历史学家，居住在斯德哥尔摩。

America has a reputation， both at home and abroad， as a country that values independence above practically all else. But from Tragardh’s perspective， that commitment to independence rings hollow. To him， Americans seem to have confused individualism with anti-statism; U.S. policy makers happily throw people into positions of reliance on their families and communities in order to keep the state out. He’s got a point. We have our own culture of dependence， and it comes with its own shortcomings.

美国在国内外都以将独立看得高于一切而著称。但从特雷高的角度来看，这种对独立的信奉听起来有些空洞。他认为，美国人似乎混淆了个人主义和反国家主义；美国的政策制定者乐见人们依赖自己的家庭和社区，这样国家就能置身事外。他的观点有一定道理。我们有自己的依赖文化，而这种文化有其自身的缺点。

In Nordic countries， people generally have help paying for college—just not from their parents. Take Sweden， for example： Most European students don’t have to pay tuition， and Swedish citizens can apply for a stipend to cover their living expenses. All young people， in university or not， with incomes below a certain threshold can qualify for a housing allowance. And if they go on to begin families of their own， they’re automatically eligible for paid parental leave and， after kids turn 1， low-cost child care.

在北欧国家，上大学通常会获得学费资助，只是并非来自父母。以瑞典为例：大多数欧洲学生无须交学费，瑞典公民还可以申请助学金以维持生活开销。所有收入低于一定水准的年轻人，无论是否在读大学，都有资格领取住房津贴。如果他们之后生儿育女，将自动享受带薪育儿假，孩子满1岁后还可以享受低成本的儿童保育。

With little of this guaranteed in the U.S.， young people have to turn elsewhere. Americans are more and more likely to live with their parents in their 20s and 30s， and in most cases， the parents are paying the lion’s share of the housing costs. About a third of low-income adults cite the need for child care as a reason for such an arrangement. And many grown people who don’t live with their parents still rely on them financially for help with college tuition， loans， rent， mortgages， or child-care costs. This interdependency sometimes goes in the other direction， too： Adult children commonly take on the role of primary caregiver for their aging parents， especially those with lower incomes who can’t afford professional help.

在美国，上述种种福利几乎都不存在，因此年轻人不得不另想办法。越来越多二三十岁的美国年轻人选择与父母同住，在大多数情况下，父母承担了大部分的住房费用。大约1/3的低收入成年人表示，父母帮忙照顾孩子，是他们做出这种安排的原因之一。而许多不与父母同住的成年人在经济上仍然依赖父母，需要父母帮忙支付大学学费、贷款、租金、抵押贷款或儿童保育费用。这种相互依存的关系有时也会反过来：成年子女通常会承担起照顾年迈父母的主要角色，收入较低、无力承担专业护理费用的尤其如此。

When Anu Partanen， a Finnish journalist and the author of The Nordic Theory of Everything， moved to the U.S.， she was continually struck by the degree to which Americans’ well-being depends on their relations. Some small examples stood out， such as the fact that married couples file their taxes jointly， or that expecting parents get their child-care gear from baby showers. Others she found more troubling： an acquaintance who was battling cancer， for instance， and couldn’t leave a bad relationship without losing her partner’s health insurance. Or the many mothers who， unable to afford child care， have to leave their job and rely on their husband’s income.

当芬兰记者、《北欧万物论》的作者阿努·帕尔塔宁搬到美国后，她时常惊讶于美国人的幸福高度依赖亲属关系这一现象。有一些很鲜明的小例子，比如已婚夫妇共同纳税，或准父母在迎婴派对上接受育儿用品。也有其他更令人不安的情况：比如，一位正与癌症对抗的熟人，如果脱离一段糟糕的婚姻关系，就会一并失去伴侣的健康保险。还有许多请不起保姆的母亲不得不辞去工作，依靠丈夫的收入维持生活。

The familial dependencies woven through American life are notable to Scandinavians like Tragardh and Partanen because the Nordic welfare state， especially in Sweden， is designed to eliminate precisely those dependencies. In fact， Tragardh came to conclude that Sweden’s guiding ideology is not so much collectivism as it is statist individualism; the goal， as he and his co-author Henrik Berggren once put it， is to make individuals “as independent of his or her fellow citizens as possible.” Partly for this reason， Swedish universities stopped taking parental income into account in financial-aid decisions， Tragardh told me. Policies such as universal health care serve a similar purpose： to support citizens so that their families don’t have to.