Stay in the US or move to Finland?

Finland was just ranked the happiest country in the world for the 8th time, followed by all the Nordic countries & the Netherlands. So why would a Finn like me stay in the US, if I can have it better?

Apr 09, 2025

“Why don’t you just moved to Finland?”

Since I started posting reels about the differences between the US and the Nordics, as well as Nordic-inspired parenting and lifestyle, this type of question started dropping into my DMs almost on the daily.

I don’t usually reply. Why? There are a lot of nuances to this question and it could be read multiple ways. It could insinuate that one shouldn’t live in the US if one finds it challenging—or worse, if one dares to suggest that anything could be done differently to create easier motherhood.

I get it. Ease is not a word embraced by the American hustle or success mentality. At its core, the “brand” of the US is based on this belief that everything in the US is the best; it’s not about finding fault, looking for improvements and certainly not about copying anyone else. If the person asked the question with all this in mind, it’s a subtle hint to “leave if you don’t like it.”

It could also be a genuinely curious question. Why on earth would anyone choose to have things harder, if they can have things easier? Why would anyone willingly give up so many of their rights and benefits as a woman and a mother and entirely forgo their basic security, if they can have them? Now that’s a good question that warrants an answer. So for anyone who has ever asked me this question, with these ideas in mind, here’s my answer”

“If I’m completely honest with you, I wonder about that too. Why?”

Why Did I Move into US in the First Place?

Before diving into reasons why, it will make sense to backtrack a little bit.

Why did I first move to the US in the first place, and why did I stay as long as I have?

As a kid, I dreamed of a career in publishing—I mastered English by reading American women’s magazines from Seventeen to Vogue cover to cover and I dreamed of working at Conde Nast or Hearst. As a child of two Finnish journalists, I had no direct or indirect track to achieving this dream. Once you listed all the obstacles, they were so countless, that the dream was all but impossible.

Insane amount of determination, countless lucky coincidences and wildly helpful strangers eventually made this happen for me.

In short, I was fortunate in a sense that I was able to get a work visa in the US through a commercial modeling agency. This enabled me to work while I slowly completed and paid for a journalism degree. I had started working in TV in Finland at the age of 16, in radio at the age of 18, and writing for magazines at 19, so I had enough work experience to also start working in the US as a freelance journalist—I’d spend my time finding stories that at least one magazine somewhere couldn’t refuse, wrote even for no payment, and learned to network around the clock.

Besides from the occasional commercials, I made ends meet by working part time as a salesperson in high-end fashion boutiques and built my resume further by getting an internship at ABC Good Morning America.

To further my career goals, I knew I would need a higher-level visa, such as the much coveted O1: this would establish you as “an alien of extraordinary ability” with a lot more freedom with work opportunities. However, it would require that you actually become a notable person in your field; you would need to showcase your real achievements.

So, I did that. I wrote columns about my American adventures for Finnish publications, which also led to a published book—a memoir—and a Finnish TV show, as well as a lot of press.

After upgrading my visa, I eventually found myself working 24-7, covering NY fashion week, interviewing everyone from Ralph Lauren to Calvin Klein during my endless work days, and going to unbelievably fabulous events with artists, designers, and media personalities. I even went on a couple of can’t-believe-this-is-happening dates—I won’t tell, but there might have been a world famous chef and a world famous author (super fun, but no butterflies though). That said, there were also really, really rough times when I wasn’t sure if I could ever get out of bed again. Just like NYC can lift you up, it can completely crush you—in a heart beat.

When I met my husband, my neighbor in our Brooklyn apartment building, I couldn’t wait to move to another phase of my life: get married and start a family. However, I had assumed that I would still continue my career that I had sacrificed so much for, and just like all my Nordic friends, I could seamlessly balance kids and work.

At this point, I didn’t really know anyone who had kids, colleagues nor friends—as women like me in NYC tend to have kids very late—so I thought I could just figure it out as I went. Just like all the Nordic moms did. So my husband and I started trying.

Shock Waves

I never forget my first shocking realization about motherhood in the US. Once I learned I was pregnant, I asked one assistant in the publishing company I worked for (I now had a green card and a full time job)—who I heard had a baby—about her work schedule. We sometimes ordered dinner to the office, so I wanted to see how she had been able to lessen her work hours. She hadn’t. She told me she saw her child on the weekends.

My second shock came as I realized I would have no paid maternity leave. In theory, you could have a paltry three months of “disability leave,” but my due date was just less than a year into my position in this company. It hadn’t occurred to me that you needed to time your fertility efforts to each company you worked for, and to each medical insurance policy.

Then, I almost got a heart attack when I visited a Brooklyn daycare center at what I would call a high-end neighborhood. Compared to Finnish daycare, it felt like an orphanage to me (I have never visited an orphanage, so this is not based on any realistic knowledge of what one might be like, it was just my feeling at that moment.) So many kids and little babies in tiny space, so much noise. Cribs right next to the play space, and TV on loud with a kids’ songs, babies crying. It was cacophonic. And, this was a possible option if you could wait for a spot on a on-year-long wait list and pay for about $30,000 a year.

I started to get more and more panicked about my situation. I tried to compensate by being extra valuable at my job, and pitching new projects I could take on. My position had been created for me, based on my unique skillsets, and my work had gotten great results—it would seem that I was in a good position to negotiate something with my employer that would allow for me to take some time off, and create some reasonable work schedule for when I would return. I was wrong.

Soon after my pregnancy started properly showing, I was instead demoted. It was made very clear that I no longer held as much value in my current position; my colleagues assumed I would quit anyhow.

I started interviewing for other jobs, as a backup plan. Anyone who saw me pregnant, including women, just straight up said, “you know we would never higher you if you need to take time off.”

I started discussing how to hang onto a career after babies with every woman I knew, and the message was the same: no matter what you do, you cannot disappear. You must say relevant at all costs because if you just vanish, say for two months, no one will remember you after that and your career is essentially over. What?!

What Now?

Long story short, I told you all that to show you how I actually didn’t think about the realities of a US-based cross-cultural marriage and kids before I got married and had kids. Should I have? Of course.

It’s just hard for a Nordic woman to "know better”—or, “know worse,” when all you have grown up with is this immense world of support and respect for mothers and motherhood.

Once I was deep in the midst of my American pregnancy and motherhood experience, I tried my best to make it all work—until I couldn’t make it work any longer.

And that’s when I convinced my husband and then 3 kids to move to Finland for the fall of 2022, so we could see and experience how the happiest parents and families in the world actually lived. That experience changed my life:

“Why didn’t anyone tell me motherhood could be like this?”

My husband and I had a major crisis during that fall, when, after nine weeks in Finland, we were supposed to go back to the US. And…I. Just. Couldn’t. Leave.

I couldn’t give up everything I had suddenly gained with the Nordic lifestyle—it was simply too good. I also changed and I loved who I was becoming.

So what was I gaining? As a non-resident Finn, I didn’t qualify for any financial benefits which are vast (you can live back in Finland for up to 6 months before you must officially move and become tax liable while qualifying for every benefit). I was only reaping benefits from the culture and lifestyle. By changing how my family and I lived, how I parented and how I saw myself as a mother, I felt like all my anxiety and overwhelm vanished. What filled that void, was a sense of fulfillment, security and contentment.

I ended up staying for 4.5 months with the boys while my husband stayed with us part of that time; as a non-Schengen-area foreigner, he was allowed 90 days out of a six month period.

Since that fall, I transformed our American life as close to Nordic-inspired ways as I could, and we have had an on-going negotiation on how to navigate our new reality. What are we going to do, if I prefer the Nordics, and my husband prefers the US?

Future plan

While numerous Nordic wives have been able to convince their American husbands to make the move, it’s not an easy proposition. For an American who is not used to navigating the world in foreign languages, mastering that skill can be tough. Even though everyone is capable of speaking English to you, you can still easily feel like an outsider as you don’t understand what’s happening around you.

Diving into the culture and all the non-verbal cues can take years, and making friends can be a challenge. And, unless you work remotely for a US company during US hours—mainly late at night—or create an instantly profitable company where it makes sense to be based in the Nordics— getting a job that matches your qualifications and pay expectations would likely be a pipe dream. What’s more, if your dream is to build wealth, Nordics are hardly the place to do it. If your dream is lifestyle, you hit the jackpot.

I did try to sell the Nordic, especially Swedish, “latte pappa” ideal to my husband—a dad on a long care leave, often seen taking his kids to the park and meeting other dads for coffee—while I would get a full-time job (note, full-time in Finland means 37.5h a week, with 4-6 weeks of vacation, not including sick days and kids’ sick days and much more)—but it was a no go.

He wanted to keep advancing with his business and financial goals in the US. I understand that, and as he has come to be extremely supportive of my Nordic dreams, I of course also want to support his. He recently started a new CEO opportunity and chairmans another company he started.

The challenge of course is this: what’s better, earning more money without any support structures, or earning a lot less but benefitting from incredible support—when kids are young. There’s no one answer to this. .

As for me, what I crave right now, I can’t even buy with the money we earn in the US (I can live a Nordic-inspired lifestyle, but I can’t buy anything like Nordic-style universal high quality early childhood education aka Nordic daycare, health care, basic security or freedom for my kids)—but in a funny reverse way, it does however give me the luxury of being able to come to Finland to experience these benefits for shorter periods of time. What my husband craves, is not an option for him in the Nordics.

As for our children, there are benefits our boys can gain from being raised in both environments.

There’s no typical path for navigating married cross-cultural family life with multiple children, with potentially conflicting priorities, in two different continents, so we are charting our own. We have even toyed around with the idea of moving to a third country, but that is unlikely at the moment. What we choose to do will likely look different each year.

For now, I’ll likely spend about a quarter of the year in the Nordics, with a different combination of family members, from the boys to my husband, joining me. In Finland, we want the kids immersed in the famed Finnish school and daycare system, and we want to give them the opportunity to really live, speak and play like the Finnish kids do. And, with the increased bandwidth Finland gives me, I use my Nordic months to put more focus on my work. Ideally, we’d have a base in both countries, and find a “best of both worlds” way of living.

Perhaps the upside of my journey is that even though I can’t bring the benefits available to Nordic mothers and children to the US, I can showcase how we can still dramatically ease our parenting journey with simple Scandi-style steps adapted to Stateside—and along with our kids, become much happier in the process. And what keeps inspiring me, is you, your ideas, questions and comments, as through this sharing and perspective-shifting both ways, we are creating a whole new kind of way to do motherhood together.

If you enjoyed this personal post of Scandi Class, don’t forget to “like” this post wiht the heart-shaped tab at the end!

If you are in a cross-cultural marriage, with cross-cultural kids, what did you decide to do or would want to do? If you ever thought about asking me this question, did this post make sense? Ask me anything, if new questions come up!