I'm raising my children abroad. The most important lesson I've learned is that there is no perfect parenting technique.

• Parents are obsessed with how other cultures raise children.
• The reality is that parents in the US need more support to make parenting easier.

I'm originally from Poland and have lived in many places around the world, including Germany, Canada, and now the Netherlands, the country where my husband and I are raising our children.

When I first became a mother, one thing I found interesting was how fascinated Americans were by the practices of parents around the world.

In recent years, books like "Happiest Kids in the World," from the Netherlands, "Achtung, Baby" from Germany, "Hunt, Gather, Parent" which touches on parenting in Greenland, Mexico, and elsewhere, or "The Danish Way of Parenting" from Denmark have become incredibly popular in the US.

But as someone who has lived in many places, I know there's more to parenting children outside of the US, starting with better support for parents.

The books can be a starting point, but there's more to be taken into account

According to these books, Dutch children enjoy great relationships with their parents and cry less than American ones. German kids are independent and not afraid to play with fire. Inuit parents are great at teaching their children emotional regulation, while Swedish parents take their children outside, rain, shine, or snow. It just requires warm clothes and constant laundry, the book "There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather" says.

Such books can be eye-opening, but I think they're all making an important mistake.

They assume that if Americans could simply replicate the behaviors of parents in the Netherlands, just to name one example, their kids would automatically be as happy as Dutch kids.

Or that raising children to behave themselves and not throw food requires simple practices such as "the big eyes," rather than making good-quality food accessible to all and enlisting the help of institutions such as daycares and schools to teach kids to appreciate various vegetables from early on.

The truth is that it's systems — such as parental leave and a good work-life balance, among many other things — that make parents, and by extension kids, happy, not the individual choices of mothers and fathers.

It's having quality and affordable childcare and flexible work arrangements that make it possible for parents to work, not better time management.

Being a parent is hard

Living in a country that offers a good social support network, I have always known that, but now, research confirms my instincts. In a 2016 study, researchers found that countries with the strongest social support systems showed the least differences in feelings of happiness between parents and nonparents. The country with the strongest happiness gap is unsurprisingly the US.

Parents in the US have little to no parental leave. Many mothers come back to work as soon as two weeks after giving birth. Upon learning about this, I thought back to the time my eldest daughter was born 12 years ago. I wasn't even able to walk for weeks after birth.

The truth is that parenting is hard, no matter where you live. Even in a parent-friendly country like the Netherlands, I had the police called on me because my eldest had a temper tantrum. The nurse at the well-baby clinic looked at me strangely when I told her my children, who were still babies then, had no routine. Later, another nurse would try to disparage me for breastfeeding my son, saying that 11 months was enough. Mothers and fathers everywhere get judged, shamed, and criticized for the smallest missteps.

Books about parenting in other cultures can feel as patronizing and judgmental as all the other parenting books. I felt bad for not raising my kids "the Dutch way," with its routines and regular mealtimes, and I actually live in the Netherlands.

Most importantly, the interest in these books shows that Americans are desperate to find the one right way to raise children. But the lesson they should really be learning from parents around the world is not how to teach children to eat or behave but rather, that perfect parenting does not exist.