europoooooor

when my husband and I were debating whether to have kids in the US or the Netherlands, I came to the conclusion that:

The Netherlands (and a lot of Europe) optimizes for the average person to live well.

The US optimizes for people who want to be great.

Copywriter for investors and crypto folks. Gamer. Muscle mommy wannabe.

📍Currently: trying to find the next place to call home

Helpful perspective

My wife and I discuss this a lot, as our options are the US and UK

We've broadly concluded that the cognitive load involved in taking care of your kids in the US is vastly higher, and worse, than raising them in the UK (food, safety, exposure to culture, walkability etc)

This assumes our ambition and professional trajectories in either place are likely similar, which for us is true, but this isnt the case for everyone

We've definitely optimized for giving our kids access to opportunity - living in a major US city, lots of options for extracurriculars, stable headspace, safety to explore... That's been a really high effort and often scary process though. I'm not sure what I'd pick if I were starting over today.