Being young in Norway

Norway is one of the safest countries to live in. I have lived here all my life, and I feel lucky to have grown up here. To grow up in one of the safest countries on the planet is safe and reassuring, and we manage to find challenges in the littlest of things.

School start at age six. You can say that going to school in Norway is “free”, but we pay for school through taxes. When you start in school at age six you have circa 13 years of school in front of you. Throughout those 13 years you make friend, lose friends, fall in love, fight, learn and love. You don’t have to worry about it being war or having to escape from your own home and country. Instead you worry about having nice clothes, who´s your friends and your grades. Personally I’ve never felt the pressure on having the nicest clothes or the best grades, but now that I´m in high school I see other teenagers be seriously affected of the pressure. When it comes to grades it can be good to have a bit challenge to improve your grades, but to a limit. The challenges that teenager in Norway face is very much alike other teenagers all over the world. We ruminate over small things that do not matter in the big picture.

I could not have asked for a better way to grow up. I am happy to have grown up in Norway, but this is my experiences and my childhood. All children in Norway do not have the same story as me, and everyone does probably not feel that Norway is one of the safest countries to grow up in. So basically I don’t think one teenager of a thousand can set the picture on how it is to be young in Norway, everyone is different and it will always be that way.