I'm an American who's lived in Europe for 10 years - and I don't miss these 5 aspects of American culture at all

Cyprus, for the uninitiated, is a little Greek-speaking island in the Eastern Mediterranean, and I regularly travel around Greece with my rambunctious 4-year-old daughter.

No matter where we go at no matter what hour — from the poshest Kolonaki restaurant to some little beachside taverna — she is greeted by both the staff and fellow diners as a delight.

This says a lot about the culture here. Greeks really love kids. But this fact has also highlighted something simple I had never fully articulated about Americans before I moved abroad. Despite the endless talk about "family values" in some quarters, we really don't value them.

Of course Americans love their own children as much as any parents anywhere. But raising kids is seen as a private decision, freighted with hardship and annoyances that are to be entirely borne by the parents themselves. Enter many places in America with a preschooler and the unspoken message feels more like, "Please move quietly to the suburbs to suffer in silence. Don't bother the rest of us with your uncool offspring."

This attitude goes deeper than just how families are received in restaurants. It's also reflected in America's pathetic public support for families, our non-existent parental leave policy, sky-high childcare costs, and underfunded schools and universities. Americans talk about loving families, but from the outside, as a country, it really seems to disdain them.

Bread bought at a normal American supermarket used to taste like bread to me. Then I moved abroad.

Now when I go back to the States and buy bread it tastes like a cupcake to me. Seriously, it's that sweet. And why, after leaving it out on the counter for a week or more, isn't it moldy? Bread here in Cyprus lasts a few days, max.

American bread really is different. It's full of chemical additives that are banned in many other countries because of potential health risks.

During my last visit to my family in New York I started checking labels. Whether I looked at salad dressing, barbecue sauce, mustard, or just about anything else, one of the first ingredients was some version of corn syrup followed by a gobbledygook of chemicals. It does not have to be this way. It should not be this way.

Here in Cyprus, full-time employees are guaranteed 20 days paid vacation leave a year, not including public holidays (of which there are plenty). In the UK, workers get 28. In the Netherlands, it's 20 as well.

In America, the legal requirement is zero days and the average granted to private sector workers is a measly 10 days. This is crazy, inhumane, and a recipe for burnout. I just cannot imagine going back to it.

I'm under no illusions that Europe is a regulatory paradise. The EU has passed plenty of ill-considered, overreaching, business-unfriendly regulations.

But it also seems interested in protecting consumers from being bullied and ripped off. It's nice to live in a place where airlines won't randomly bump you from flights and everyday consumer banking is easy, cheap, and mostly electronic (the overall health of the banking sector is another matter).

There are fewer hidden fees, outrageous charges, and straight-up scams here. For the life of me, I don't understand why Americans don't demand their government stick up for them too.