For most people it's necessary for both parents to work here in Norway too. There's one year of paid leave split between the parents, but unless one of them has a very well paid job that's as long as one is able to stay at home. But there's mostly room for all the kids above one year to go to nursery school, so there is a good system to enable people to both work and have kids.

And Nia, it's not that cold here :P Well, not everywhere. Like, the south west coast have very mild winters. In Bergen, where I'm from, there's usually only a couple of days of snow each winter. The winter darkness, though. That's seriously depressing o_O