The soother trees of Scandinavia: the passage from baby to child
Each place, each country, even each family, has their own customs and traditions that make up their culture. Within these traditions, different rituals often have an important place, especially when it comes to actions thatthey symbolize the passage from one stage to another. Therefore, today we talk about the soother trees of Scandinavia.
In the Hispanic countries (Spain and Latin America), most of our rituals have to do with religion: First Communion, Confirmation ... although we also have others whose origin is not very clear, such as that of putting pending babies a few days after birth.
Most rituals, however, they have to do with changes in people and, specifically, the passage from one age to another: from childhood to puberty or from puberty to adult life. When we know other different cultures, we find ourselves interesting customs that can surprise us but it is always good to know, because knowing others makes us much more tolerant.
Ritual of "maturity" in Scandinavia
In Scandinavia they have an interesting ritual that It symbolizes the passage from the earliest childhood to the "oldest" childhood: the call Suttetræwhat translated means "the tree of the pacifiers". It is celebrated in many Scandinavian cities of Sweden, Norway and Denmark and goes back years: for generations children hang their pacifiers from trees for Show your step from being babies to big kids.
Surely many parents know how difficult it is to get the little ones to leave the pacifier ... because the Scandinavian parents seem to have found (it is not known whether or not) the solution: They motivate the children to leave the pacifier for everything that it symbolizes in their culture.
"The idea is that the child, or failing his parents, when he feels he no longer wants or needs the pacifier, make a kind of ritual sacrifice to let it go," they tell in the Wall Street International magazine, which explains this interesting and peculiar rite. "The idea is to be taken to one of the trees dedicated to it so they hang it and mark their transition to the next stage of their lives," they say.
The custom is that the whole family goes to the area where the trees are to hang the pacifiers and, as the children do not reach their branches, the parents raise them so that they themselves hang the symbol of their passage from baby to "big boy". Also, the pacifier is usually accompanied by a letter written by the child saying goodbye to his partner since he was born.
"Scandinavian psychologists say that everything this helps the child to learn to leave things that are no longer useful", they explain in the magazine, which indicate that this ritual leaves" a positive image in their mind. "In fact, it is very common for children to return to the area when they are teenagers or adults and show your pacifier to your friends or new family.
Suttetræ, the pacifier tree
As mentioned, the pacifier trees they are usually specially designed for this: you will not go through a park or the street and you will see all the trees with hanging dummies. Among the most famous and visited by tourists there is one near the entrance of the Copenhagen Frederiksberg Park (Denmark). There is also a very nice one in the open-air museum and zoo Skansen, in Stockholm (Sweden).
In addition, with globalization, many customs of some places pass to other very distant places, and this has happened with the soother trees of Scandinavia: now they are in other countries like United States, where this custom is beginning to become fashionable as an incentive for the children to leave the pacifiers thanks to the celebration of a very special rite.
Angela R. Bonachera
