I'm an American Dad Living in Sweden. Parenting Here Is Amazing.

This story is based on an interview with the editors of The Doe.

I met my now-wife Susanna at a bar in New York. Within five minutes, we were making out. We went on a date the next day, where I learned she was from Sweden. Then she disappeared for months. After that we dated longterm, off and on. I was running a remote business, so I could very easily live all over the world. We moved to Laos together, and then back to Brooklyn, and then it was Sweden’s turn.

I moved to live with Susanna at the end of 2019. We were already pregnant with our first child, and we planned to have the baby in Sweden. There was no way we were going to have the baby in America, not only because this was her hometown and she has her family, but also because it’s one of the best places to be if you have young kids. Not to mention actually having the baby. The delivery room is insanely nice, like bigger than a New York City apartment. After birth, you stay in what they call the “baby hotel” as long as you want. I don't even think you could pay for a private hospital in the United States and get the same quality.

For Susanna’s first birth, we were sorta stuck in an American mindset—which was “avoid the hospital for as long as possible.” We wanted the doula to come to our apartment rather than meet us at the hospital. We didn’t understand that the hospital was a nice place to be. We waited so long that when we finally got to the hospital, Susanna gave birth 15 minutes after she got there. 

After the baby is born, you get 480 days parental leave, and you can split that between the partners. You can even assign some of those days to family members or other caregivers. They pay your salary up to $4,000 a month, and then after that, a lot of employers will top you off so it meets your original salary. Your position at work is reserved for you. And then they start preschool at age one, for about $100 a month. For the first 12 years of being a parent, you have the right to reduce your working hours. Susanna is going back to work next week, after having our second baby, and she's only going to do four days a week.

The Swedish government basically gives you no excuse to not spend time with your kids.

A lot of people may know all these stats from Ezra Klein’s podcast or whatever, but what people really should understand is that you're very much encouraged to take these benefits. You’re looked down upon if you don't take parental leave.

It's so much less stressful this way. It might feel like you’re missing out on your career, but you make up for it by having the time and the space to be with your family. When I go back to visit New York, I get really stressed, actually—and I grew up there. I don't know how people even travel with kids in New York; a stroller on the subway sounds like a nightmare. There are elevators in some stations, but not all, and they smell like pee. Everything in Sweden is built for kids. Every subway has an elevator, so that you can take your stroller on it. 

For my first baby I didn’t take paternity leave. (Don’t tell any of my coworkers—they might look down on me!) It’s only because we were stuck in the house during COVID doing nothing. I shut down my business during that time, and even if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have gotten paid by the government if I worked for myself at a U.S.-based company. But you can keep some of the parental leave days you don’t use for later. I definitely plan on using them at some point.

I’m actually on paternity leave right now for our second baby. It’s a lot of parenting time, but you just sort of resign yourself. The Swedish government has created so many spaces for you here, and they've taken away other things you need to do. They're giving you places to meet other parents and spaces where kids can run around and play with toys and sing. They’ve removed your other obligations. They basically give you no excuse to not spend time with your kids.

Parenting and the attitudes towards kids seem really different in Sweden. You can kind of expect the average person here to be much better with kids, and parents here are so calm. At the park the other day, this kid was trying to push some other kids on the swings and was a little too aggressive. One of the girls’ dads was there and was just so gentle; he treated the aggressive kid as if it was his own child. He just said, “You have to ask first,” without getting protective over his own kid. In general, in Scandinavia, they’re big on more dangerous play. They let the kids climb the trees and if they fall, they don’t run over and smother their kids. I notice a lot of the parents here love cozy family time. These people are obsessed with kids, and they’re also obsessed with cozy time (that’s what hygge means).

I never wanted to have kids, but now I can’t imagine not being a dad to my two daughters. I think I’m really good at it—I’m extremely patient with them, which could be something made possible in Sweden and less possible in America unless you’re super-rich. If I’m walking down the street with them and they’re going slow or in different directions, it doesn’t matter. I let them explore and try not to interrupt them. I mean, they annoy me a lot, and parents who say they love their kids 100 percent of the time are crazy. But being a dad is the best thing ever.