To be a SAHM or not to be a SAHM

That is the question.

That has been the question for a while, but the answer has constantly been postponed. When we decided to have a baby, I had recently earned my PhD and had followed my husband to DC where he had been offered a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship position. I managed to find a decent renewable one-year lectureship at another university in the area, and let me tell you, two bottom-rung academics finding jobs in the same city that do not require one or both of them to shoulder unholy workloads without even having benefits or an office or a university email address, well, that's pretty good.

 There were stressful aspects of my job as there are in every job, especially because I was in the position of supervising a team of fellow lecturers who'd been there longer than I had, but overall I really enjoyed teaching. And when I got pregnant, I was lucky and had an easy pregnancy for the first 8.5 months or so, which meant I enjoyed working while being pregnant. My son was due in mid-September, and my ambitious plan was to stay at home with him that fall semester and return to a lighter teaching load the following January. As my husband had no teaching responsibilities and a fairly flexible schedule, we assumed that we would both be able to work and share the childcare duties. The Chair of my department put my name on the course listings for that winter semester.

 Then O was born, and everything was rainbows and sunshine and he was the most beautiful bundle of plump cheeks and twinkling eyes that I'd ever seen. I loved him instantly and was over the moon for the first couple of weeks. And then everything plummeted, swiftly. I won't go into the gory details, but will say that post-partum mood disorders are very, very real and that I was lucky to have good doctors who (eventually) made the right diagnosis and found the proper treatment. Needless to say, I didn't go back to work that January. I just didn't feel confident about it, and by the time I thought I might be ready to teach that fall, when O would be turning one, there was no longer a position for me.

 I tell myself that the decision was made for me, but the truth is that I made no effort to look for other jobs. I LIKED the routine I'd created with O. We had our favorite playgrounds, our favorite museums (DC will forever be my favorite city for kids just for the free museums alone), the zoo (again, free!), swim lessons, music group, story time at the local library. It's not that I was ever one of those crafty moms making him toys or coming up with art projects. We just had a lot of fun hanging out doing cool things around the city, and then he'd be content to play with his smallish collection of toys and look at his books at home.

 So here's the dilemma. Part of me thinks we could continue to do something similar here. We've already found some great parks and playgrounds and have a library card. The library does music and storytelling stuff, which would be a nice way to learn some Swedish, and the building itself is fun. I could do a little research into other kid friendly places that are hopefully free. And if there's an indoor pool not too far away, I'd pony up for swim lessons again.

 On the other hand, part of me is starting to miss working and Sweden is supposedly one of the best countries for working moms. It's been a long time since anyone has called me Dr. K -- I'm sure lots of our playground acquaintances in DC only knew me as O's mom. The trouble is, I can't work until all my immigration documents are processed anyway, which won't be for another couple of weeks I think. I've obviously missed any chance to teach this semester, and wonder if it will be too late to look into teaching in January. And what about jobs other than teaching? Is that something to consider? And then there's the question of O. I've seen a bunch of these different preschools playing outside and they all seem a little... rough. Is this because I'm an overly protective helicopter parent? Do the Swedes let boys be boys more? Or have I just not paid so much attention to American preschoolers at the playground because I had no intention of sending O to one, and they're all like this? I just can't decide if he's still too young for it. Would it be good to toughen him up a bit and socialize him? Or would it just traumatize him? So many questions. Anyone out there with some answers?