The Tradeoff That Wasn’t

Leaving the U.S. Vs. Arriving in Sweden

When I was planning my move from Connecticut to Stockholm in 2019, a friend emailed me. She’d heard the news and was incredulous.

 “Is it true you’re leaving the U.S.??!?” she asked. 

Her question–and her punctuation– implied that what I was proposing to do was unthinkable. She wasn’t one of the “best country in the world” people, but more of a “but this is your home!” person. We talked. I told her my reasons, which made a pretty long list then and would be even longer today. She was stuck on how I would miss my family and friends, which was a fair point. But it wasn’t 1830. The world is small now. There are airplanes and texting and free calling and it didn’t seem to me like that big a deal.

I was awakening from years of a twinkling sunk-cost fallacy dream, during which we had poured enormous resources and unending work into establishing and maintaining our lives in Connecticut. None of it was making me particularly happy. I was certain of two things. One, the U.S. was going to hell in a handbasket. Two, I would be happier outside it. 

“You’re going to lose just as much as you gain,” she said. “It’s going to be a tradeoff.” 

It’s been almost five years now and I’m still not sure about that. It’s true that most things in life are tradeoffs, of course, but not this one. As my five-year anniversary approaches, I’ve been thinking about what I lost and gained in five areas that are important to me. Below are the categories and my scorecard.

My Fellow Americans: For the first few years, I sorely missed my fellow Americans and their unique energy and charm. But now, post Covid, it’s often because of them that people want to leave the U.S. “Everyone in the U.S. is just so fucking angry, all the time. It’s exhausting,” one friend said. “The biggest problem, for me, is the people. I want to get out before they attack one another. It’s getting closer day by day,” said another. Like many people, I worry about the prospect of violence, from meltdowns at Walmart to civil war. After some time and effort, I now have the best of both worlds: Plenty of American friends who, unshackled from the nightmare stress of late capitalism, are blooming like roses.

U.S.: 0

Sweden: 1

School: In Connecticut, the kids went to the public school in our town. In a very real sense, the whole town was for the kids and the teachers and the school administration couldn’t have been more dedicated. It worked very well for most, but not for one of mine, who they did not in any way understand. They couldn’t motivate this kid to do the hard stuff. Star stickers on a chart didn’t work. And when they offered extra help, the teachers managed it so clumsily that the kid was embarrassed in front of the class. In seventh grade, this is a life or death issue, I promise you. I feared that this kid was headed for a job at the car wash. But once in Sweden, school was a much more relaxed place. Guided by the Swedish concept of lagom, they accepted the kid completely and took it from there. The kid felt respected and found motivation almost overnight. Now this kid is a fierce intellectual, opining about income inequality over breakfast and someone else will have to wash the cars. It was a miracle. 

U.S.: 0

Sweden: 1

Car Dependence: Since World War II, U.S. cities and suburbs have been designed for cars, resulting in unlivable concrete jungles, usually without sidewalks, one strip mall following the next with gas stations in between. Cars make for hideous urban architecture and a choking haze of gritty exhaust. I used to have to drive to the park to walk the dog. I loved my car. She was a good girl. But I didn’t like the feeling of needing a car. It entrapped me. In Stockholm, I have no car, only a grocery cart and a bus pass. This means I also have no car payment, nor expenses for gas, insurance, tires and repairs, freeing up a fair chunk of cash. It also means that I often have to walk in the cold, rain or snow, but that is what humans evolved to do over the millennia. It doesn’t bother me at all.

U.S.: 0

Sweden: 1

Mass Shootings: These happen only in America, so until Congress returns to sanity, the solution to this problem is to leave the country. The shootings recur with heartbreaking frequency, as I wrote about here:

And, as of this week, the shootings will occur with a form of Supreme Court sanction. Outside of the U.S. or a war zone, you’re extremely unlikely to be caught up in a mass shooting. That’s because normal people refuse to accept the risk of dying en masse at the hands of a maniac with an AK-47 shooting into a crowd at a rate of more than 1,000 rounds in eleven minutes, as happened in Las Vegas in 2017. Here, I no longer have to think about it. 

U.S.: 0

Sweden: 1

Healthcare: U.S. healthcare is a sprawling, expensive, ineffective mess, but its shortcomings are largely invisible to people with money. I had great doctors in the U.S., but I paid dearly for them and I knew that if I lost my job, they would wave goodbye without skipping a beat. Swedish healthcare is virtually free. When I needed a CT scan, it cost $20. My three-day hospital stay last year cost $80, with a note of apology on the bill for it costing anything at all. Free is very nice, but I haven’t found Swedish healthcare to be all that good. Here’s the problem: Swedish doctors have zero sense of urgency. They know that you have no recourse. You can’t sue them. You can only file a complaint with the enfeebled medical bureaucracy. A Swedish ER is quieter than a library and the staff float around in slow motion, as if in a silent dance. If you really want to be seen, you have to act like Diego Maradona writhing on the soccer pitch with fake pain from a fake injury. Even this works only 22% of the time. Apparently, when you are actually dying, they do speed up a bit, but if they cut it too close, you will be gray on a tray. This one is a wash. 

U.S.: 0

Sweden: 0

Culture: There were so many stressors when I lived in the U.S. I was working too much, often fatigued, bogged down at home and worried about everything. I always had thousands of emails to answer. I was driving the kids around all the time, then circling back to pick them up. I was usually too overwhelmed to do anything fun. Everyone seemed on edge. I kept forgetting to pick up the dry cleaning. Yam Tits was in the White House and the air felt alive with a free-floating tension. The culture felt antagonistic, selfish and work-obsessed and the whole country was a downer. But when I got off the plane at Arlanda, I could breathe again. Sweden easily wins on this measure because it’s focussed on quality of life. It’s safe, beautiful, clean and calm. The food is unaltered by mad chemists and water is pure. People don’t work crazy hours, time off is generous, and the culture is humane. There is time to hang out, by yourself or with others. There is time to do nothing. That alone sets it apart from the U.S., where time is sliced and priced by states and capital — a time-money continuum. 

U.S.: 0

Sweden: 1