Why I Won't Raise My Kids in Europe

Exploring Compulsory Education, Homeschooling, and the Freedom to Travel

Picture thousand-dollar fines or imprisonment for taking your kids on a trip during a school week. You don’t need to stretch your imagination if you live in Europe—that’s the reality. Of course, the regulations vary greatly depending on which country in Europe, but “Why I Probably Wouldn’t Raise My Kids in Many European Countries” doesn’t have the same ring to it.

You should also know I don’t have kids, but in 2024 ago, I met a woman who made every fibre in my body yearn for children for the first time in my life. The biological and spiritual pull was strong enough that I asked her to marry me after three weeks. Questioning my sanity is fair, but I’ve put my parents’ love story on a pedestal my entire life, and they got married after six dates.

You can read their story here next month if you subscribe.

Unfortunately, my love story didn’t produce what my parents’ story did—one stable, independent son who soothes everyone with his presence… and me.

At least my love story was filled with lessons. You can’t expect loyalty from people who betray themselves, and you won’t get peace from people who are at war internally. You are not in a relationship with someone’s potential but with the person in front of you. And finally, a soulmate is not always the person you’ll spend your life with, but a mirror that helps you discover something new in yourself. As painful as cutting that cosmic thread is, part of maturing is recognising when a chapter has reached its end.

But let’s get back to kids.

A broken heart triggered my quest to the north of Sweden to explore the therapeutic effects of slow travel. A large part of this quest has been figuring out where the hell my home is or if I’ll ever find one. Because I thought I’d found ‘the one,’ home was wherever she was, but it brought up questions about where to raise kids, and since we wanted to raise kids as nomads, Europe no longer seemed like the best option.

Why? Compulsory Education Laws.

What is the Reality of European Compulsory Education Laws?

In France, parents who fail to provide a valid reason for their child’s absence or resort to lying about it can face a fine of €135. If the absences significantly impact the child’s education, the penalties escalate to two years imprisonment and a fine of up to €30,000.

In Germany, fines vary by state, ranging from €35 per day in Bremen up to a possible €2,500 in Berlin.

In the Netherlands, school absenteeism can result in a fine of €100 per day up to a maximum of €600 per family for one week and €900 for two weeks.

In Spain, fines are usually capped at €1,500 in serious cases, but in Madrid, they can be as high as €30,000. Fines are usually pursued if a child misses more than 20 percent of classes a month.

Sure, you can argue that these laws and regulations enforce social cohesion and equality, integration and socialization, and parental responsibility, but countries (even if they’re social democracies) can pull all that off without this semi-authoritarian bullshit. Systems should encourage people who struggle to get their kids to school with rewards, not punish families who want to further a child’s education through travel.

When I learned about these fines, I immediately called my parents to say, “Of course you left Belgium and raised me in Canada!”

A Canadian Perspective on Travel and Education

Every year, my parents took me out of school to visit a new country for one to two months. All they had to do was inform the teachers. They’d prepare me a homework package, we’d make a travel video, and I’d return, usually two to three units ahead of all the other children.

Privileged, for sure, but my case is becoming less unique as digital nomads and remote workers decide to have families or accidentally get pregnant during their ‘spiritual enlightenment’ in Bali.

Yet, unlike my parents, Elin Petronella, an artist raising nomadic third-culture kids, decided to make Belgium her home base.

What is Homeschooling like in Europe? A Complex and Evolving Landscape

In Sweden, where I'm from, homeschooling is completely illegal. There's no "compulsory education"; there's "compulsory school," and the socialists are currently pushing for compulsory kindergarten starting already at 3. Freedom of education is the main reason we went to Belgium, more specifically, Wallonia, the French-speaking part, where you have the constitutional right to home-educate your children. It seems to be a relatively straightforward process with an easy paper signature at five. Starting at six, you'll submit a "schedule/curriculum" along with your application (it's different in the Flemish part of Belgium).

After my research, Luxembourg seems the friendliest country for homeschoolers looking more at the travelling side… even potentially world schooling as you can legally "unschool," meaning that you can homeschool with a strict curriculum.

We first considered other countries like Spain and Portugal, but it felt important from a long-term perspective to choose a country where the legislation is clear and set to avoid potential problems down the road. For example, in Spain, it's not recognized, which means your child won't be able to re-integrate later on should your family situation/desire change. I've also spoken to many expats in Portugal who've had problems getting their applications approved as it has to pass through local schools (who aren't very supportive). All in all, it's a tricky question, generally with a lot of urgency attached, as it tends not to become a problem until the children are here and you discover entirely new levels of how countries operate.

From what I’ve heard from my family in Flanders, Belgium, it hasn’t always been as easy as signing a paper, and it depends a bit on the school. Regarding flexibility within the public school system, Canada has undoubtedly been much more forgiving with me than my cousins in Belgium.

–Elin Petronella

Education and Culture: A Contrast of Systems

Also, from a Canadian perspective, most public schools I’ve seen in Europe look like prisons. And even if they lack the physical appearance of a prison—concrete football (soccer) fields, windows small enough to keep children from jumping out, and grey walls that lock you in—the imprisonment of spirit and mind is inevitable.

In Germany, you pop out of the womb already forced to decide your career path. In France, people define you based on your high school. And in Spain, those who go to semi-public Catholic schools think they’re better than everyone but leave the school with the same non-existent second language skills and entrepreneurial spirit as everyone else.

But there’s always homeschooling… kind of.

In Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Greece, homeschooling is illegal, with some rare exceptions, but those countries don’t represent all of Europe. According to Nomad Capitalist, the best countries for homeschooling (based on factors such as legal status, availability of resources, and cultural experience) are South Africa, Singapore, India, Austria, Belgium, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the United States.

The Freedom to Choose: Where Will You Call Home?

So, although saying “I won’t raise my kids in Europe” was simple when considering taking kids out of school for trips, homeschooling makes it a bit more complicated. In Spain, homeschooling is still a grey area (like everything else in Spain) with no specific legislation. So, do I want to stay a resident there? Do I want to create a home in a country that makes it difficult to take my kids out of school?

Elin Petronella told me that you risk being alienated by society and certain friend groups if you choose to homeschool your kids. Unlike in North America, where people look at the individual standing before them, they look at the group they belong to.

I would say that’s true to my experience as an adult in Vancouver, Canada. But as a Belgian “foreign boy” who grew up in Vernon, Canada, I know small-town North Americans will exclude, torment, and bully anyone who doesn’t fit the mould. Fortunately, we outcasts in elementary school had the chance to flourish in high school. Woodworking, metalworking, sewing, football teams, ski teams, drama clubs, accounting & entrepreneurship electives, cooking classes, hotboxed vehicles, leadership groups—no matter where you excelled, you had the chance to find your direction in a Canadian public school.

Yet, school systems are at the whim of governments, the economy, and salaries that don’t devastate teachers' well-being. Ultimately, I think choosing the place you feel most at home is best. Regulations can always change, just like your income and the remote job that allows you to travel can. Hell, in my case, I don’t even have control over who I fall in love with and crave making babies with. On top of that, I still don’t know where home is.

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