Unicef recently published a list of the best countries in which to be a child. The Netherlands placed first. Denmark, my adopted homeland, came in second. Copenhagen certainly scores well on the “popsicle test”, which assesses the safety of a place according to whether an eight-year-old can walk to a shop on their own, buy a lolly and return home safely. I know families in Copenhagen whose children have roamed freely around the city centre from the age of six. Danish children enjoy wonderful freedoms and protections, and are indulged by city planners. It’s hard to argue against any of this but I have begun to wonder: can a society shift too far in favour of the youngest generation?

I recently walked around Copenhagen’s new Opera Park with its architect, Maj Wiwe. Since opening in 2023, Opera Park has become my favourite public space in the city but I had never really thought about why until Wiwe drew my attention to the absence of children. There’s no programming for them. There are no playgrounds or areas for ball games; no climbing walls, basketball courts or shallow boating ponds; no signs with cartoon characters on them; no cuddly mascots encouraging you to pick up your litter.

Wiwe said that she had designed the park for adult pursuits, such as gazing at spring blossoms, reading a book in a shady corner or getting mildly drunk on a summer’s evening. Seeing my children grow up in Copenhagen has made me realise that Danish children are cosseted in many ways. The country’s one-size-fits-all state-school system has a laudable emphasis on supporting lower-achieving pupils but it often comes at the cost of the academically ambitious. Competitiveness is generally discouraged and the limelight is meant to be shared. I once sat, bewildered, at a school production of Treasure Island, until it was pointed out to me during the interval that every child in my son’s class was being given the chance to play one of the main characters through scene-by-scene rotation. It’s a strange paradox: Danish children are extraordinarily free, except to succeed or fail.

Visiting the Opera Park with its designer made me realise the extent to which most other public spaces in the Danish capital are sacrificed in order to keep children amused or distracted. Perhaps the adults have gone along with it because we ourselves have become so infantilised. We dress like children in sportswear and trainers. We play computer games, read Harry Potter and wait patiently outside multiplexes for the latest Marvel film. Instagram encourages us to eat under-10s’ birthday-party food. We drive cartoonish cars and play padel instead of tennis. And don’t get me started on grown men on skateboards.

Copenhagen’s Opera Park offers a compelling alternative approach to urban spaces, with fewer swings and rubberised safety surfaces, and more contemplative oases – quiet corners of the city in which to read a book or flirt. Who knows? If we show our children more mature ways in which to live in the city, we might begin to raise more robust grown-ups.

Michael Booth is Monocle’s Copenhagen correspondent.

Illustrator: Pete Ryan